Oooookay.

[bladespark]

And here I thought that the people who insist on counting every pirated song download as a theft of revenue were crazy.

I found somebody crazier!

http://whyfirefoxisblocked.com/
http://reddit.com/info/2fw3h/comments

The first link there is the site itself, the second is a reddit discussion thereof. Basically the site claims that anybody who uses firefox's adblock is stealing revenue from the sites the visit, as they're not viewing the ads, therefore they can't click the ads, nor buy the stuff, thus the stealing.

I don't know about you, but I NEVER click on unsolicited ads when I see them, so my not seeing the ads makes no difference whatsoever in my clicking and buying. Heck, my not seeing ads is saving them badwidth, not costing them money!

Stupid people.

Oh, they also say firefox (yes, the browser) is a religion. http://www.populartechnology.net/2005/01/firefox-new-religion.html

Comments

[svashtar.livejournal.com]

I've come to the conclusion that the majority of people on this planet are batshit insane. Or stupid. It's so hard to tell sometimes.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

A little from column A, a little from column B. *grins* I actually don't mind this particular insanity. Means I can easily avoid sites run by total morons. And if there's something I just MUST see on such a site, well, it's not like you can uninstall Internet Explorer from a computer, so I do still have it lying around.

[svashtar.livejournal.com]

I'm in the same boat you are: I do NOT click on ads intentionally. Hell, I don't even do click-throughs to support sites that depend on the revenue from people ordering from click-through sites. I figure if I want to support a site, I'll send them money directly.

[baloo-ursidae.livejournal.com]

And if there's something I just MUST see on such a site, well, it's not like you can uninstall Internet Explorer from a computer, so I do still have it lying around.

IE is uninstallable on MacOS and Linux...

[shadesfox.livejournal.com]

I usually just say stupid. Insane implies that something was there, but it broke. Stupid says that it was never there to begin with.

[baloo-ursidae.livejournal.com]

I usually hear that framed as "Never attribute to malice what can be readily explained by stupidity."

[nsdragon.livejournal.com]

It's not really saving them money either, since generally the ads are coming from another server and not from the one you're visiting.

Still, it's yet another example of the "customers are assumed to be criminals" mentality. Yay. Like that one other guy that claimed that getting up during a commercial break to go to the bathroom or to get a snack was also stealing since they didn't stick around to watch the ads.

And an example of people getting up in arms about things they don't understand, too. Technically, even if I have Adblock on, I'm still viewing their ads, since Adblock only makes them invisible. They still get downloaded, and thus still register a hit on the viewed column in the stats. Whether they're being paid per view or per click isn't really my problem.

Besides, if we're blocking the ads, wouldn't it be because of all those giant seizure-inducing GIF banners, Punch-the-monkey Flash movies and even those that spawn on top of the content and won't go away until you close it? Streisand Effect, anyone? There's a reason why Google Ads is being so successful, and being loud, noisy and intrusive isn't the reason.

Finally, you can always get the User Agent Switcher (http://chrispederick.com/work/user-agent-switcher/) extension and make Firefox identify itself as Opera/Netscape/IE/Mosaic/Konqueror/Playschool's My First Web Browser/etc. to get around the silly ban.

Or just stop visiting them. It's obvious they don't want our traffic/business/money anymore.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I use firefox. Religion? No. A hell of a lot better than IE? Gods yes! No pop ups, immune to so many more nasty viruses and crap and I don't have to update it every other week! It has lovely lovely tabs and lots of other little features that I love so much.

and I have expressly clicked site's adds. BUT not because I give a damn about the adverts (I would NEVER buy anything from an internet advert) but because I like the site and expressly hunt out the adverts to click for the sake of the site. This is regardless of the browser I use.

And one of the stupidest things the various copywrite people ever did was claim that "piracy" was theft (and this is even stupider). It's not. It's not more theft than me recording something off the TV and fastforwarding through the adverts - or going to make a cup of tea during the adverts, just as downloading music is no more theft than my photocopying a painting.

Theft, by definition, includes DENYING the legitimate owner their property. You have to TAKE SOMETHING AWAY. copying doesn't do that.

I DO agree that copywrite (but not ad blocking - because we never click on ads anyway and, as you say, I just save them bandwidth) should be protected BUT I also say the main reason most people violate it is because the various industries that are targetted (software and music) make an almost religious (ha ha) dedication of screwing their customers.

When you can buy a product but not own it, when you can have crap like this pulled on you http://www.smh.com.au/news/Technology/Google-to-Stop-Web-Video-Rentals-Sales/2007/08/11/1186530657115.html, when singles and DVDs are vastly overpriced, when albums contain 2 songs you want and 12 you wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole, when Microsoft's ToS reads like the kind of contract you should be signing in blood with the smell of sulphur and when you pay £100+ for software that is not substantially different from the old kind, is buggy, will need patching and upgrading before its usable and generally when the companies treat us like shit then YES, you will get a lot more piracy because people have NO respect for the company or the laws that protect the company.

Sure there will always be piracy, but there would be a lot less if people didn't resent the industries so much

[baloo-ursidae.livejournal.com]

BUT not because I give a damn about the adverts (I would NEVER buy anything from an internet advert) but because I like the site and expressly hunt out the adverts to click for the sake of the site.

OTOH, this only inflates the click count without increasing the purchase count, reducing the value of the advertising. This might not be a bad thing if it means some day we can go back to the ad-free days of the early 1990s without having to have an adzapping squid on the network, or use the less-effective Mozilla adblock...

when Microsoft's ToS reads like the kind of contract you should be signing in blood with the smell of sulphur

GPL is your friend. It's possible to switch painlessly (http://www.goodbye-microsoft.com/) if you're on Windows.

I agree

[aazhie.livejournal.com]

Sure there will always be piracy, but there would be a lot less if people didn't resent the industries so much

hear hear!

I never click on pop ups except by mistake. And i always regret it! they never have anything I want, even when they relate to my seach words... so lame!

[thesammichfox.livejournal.com]

People just seem to get crazier and crazier.. Expecially with some of their ideas.. Or maybe just stupider, and don't stop to think.. And they are bitching about firefox and its pop up blocker but the newest version of internet explorer does all the same things firefox does now.. It also has a pop up blocker as well..

[baloo-ursidae.livejournal.com]

And they are bitching about firefox and its pop up blocker but the newest version of internet explorer does all the same things firefox does now.

Except render HTML/XHTML to the standard specification. Except having regular security review of the code and resulting security fixes. Unfortunately, if there's only two things your web browser and it's developers should do, it's those two...

[thesammichfox.livejournal.com]

LoL well I don't actually use IE myself.. I like fire fox alot better personally. But my mom does use IE cause she didn't seem to comprehend some of the things firefox does.. And it has the pop up blocker and the tab thing.. Not to mention I am a Mac user and there is really no other option other then fire fox.. What am I going to use? Safari? Ew.. I think not..

[baloo-ursidae.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with Safari? KDE ships with Konqueror, which is what Safari's based on, and it works fine for me except on the occasional site that grossly violates the specs... Oddly enough, Konq and Safari are the only two browsers that can pass the Acid Test at this time, which kind of demonstrates that even Firefox has a long way to go when it comes to it's renderer...

[thesammichfox.livejournal.com]

I have always had a huge issue with Safari I don't know why.. Sometimes it doesn't like to load things on certain websites.. and I have just used firefox for a long while.. I also really like the tab option so I don't have a billion windows going at once.. Which can get rather annoying (IMO)

[baloo-ursidae.livejournal.com]

The first link there is the site itself, the second is a reddit discussion thereof. Basically the site claims that anybody who uses firefox's adblock is stealing revenue from the sites the visit, as they're not viewing the ads, therefore they can't click the ads, nor buy the stuff, thus the stealing.

What morons. They should rethink thier position, if only because if they take it to the next natural progression, they owe everyone money who routes their packets, whether or not they're a customer of the intermediate networks...

Heck, my not seeing ads is saving them badwidth, not costing them money!

Well, the ad server's bandwidth, which frequently is another company entirely.

[thesammichfox.livejournal.com]

I was just saying that what I see from my mom using IE.. I have a Mac, I use fire fox cause I really have no other choice unless I want to use safari.. And thats not going to happen..

[baloo-ursidae.livejournal.com]

Why not install it, put an icon for it on the desktop, remove the IE icon, rename Firefox's icon to Internet Explorer and change the icon to match? I'm sure there's an IE theme for Firefox as well...

[thesammichfox.livejournal.com]

LOL there probably is.. But I am not allowed to touch her computer.. She has it password coded and everything... and she also asks me for help all the time with the pc and I just look at her like a deer caught in headlights.. Cause the whole pc thing is strange and weird to me.. And while it is not too too different I am just so used to doing stuff on the mac I just get a little lost any time I touch a PC..

[coyoty.livejournal.com]

The same arguments are used to intimidate DVR companies like TiVo. Broadcasters claim that skipping over commercials is theft, so TiVo and Comcast's DVR let you only fast forward through commercials, to avoid being sued. I prefer to fast forward because I want to catch any new interesting commercials, but that should be an option, not a restriction.

[web-dragon.livejournal.com]

their ad eat away at the small amount of bandwidth i have already, I only have a dialup connection. Until they promise to repay me for that bit of bandwidth their ads use i will be a happy thief and block their craptastic ad's.

[errickfoxy.livejournal.com]

This vaguely reminds me of the hubbub that came up over DVR devices, like TiVo, and ad companies complaining that the "skip" button lets people avoid seeing the advertisement, or the complaints from the DVD industry that DVD players shouldn't be able to skip over the ads at the beginning of the DVD.