Jay Leonard
I often hear people complain about the advertisements they see on the Internet. They opine at having these horrific ads on the sides of articles they read that have nothing to do with things they want to see. Some people just want to read the article that they’ve clicked on, not see a huge box telling them to buy this product or that product. Whenever someone tells me about this, I have to stop and remember that most people haven’t thought to figure out a way to fix this.
Six years ago, the most popular internet browser today was born — Google Chrome. I remember when it first came out and I downloaded it to begin using as my primary internet browser. It was so faster than Internet Explorer and Firefox. This was nothing against those two browsers, but Google Chrome was like a stripped down version of both of them. I remember that it seemed the norm that you’d have these toolbars that would ceaselessly need to be uninstalled. There were also these menus that took up a lot of screen real estate. I simply wanted to “surf the net” with as much screen space as possible.
So, when Chrome came out, it was like perfect.
A little over a year after Chrome came out, they launched something called Extensions. I don’t really remember what was being said about it at the time, but I do remember that there was this ‘golden’ extensions called “AdBlock.” This particular extension did exactly what it sounds like it does — blocked advertisements. Of course, certain types of ads would still make their way through the AdBlock, but that was because they were still working out the kinks. Over time, the number of ads that would make it through dwindled.
It’s been almost 5 years and it has to be one of my most favorite features of Chrome. The ability to limit the barrage of advertisements makes my internet experience much more enjoyable. So, if you weren’t using Chrome, I strongly recommend you use Chrome. Some folks might feel an aversion to using AdBlock (many sites make their money from the advertisements), so I won’t necessarily give a full-throated endorsement of AdBlock. However, I’d at least recommend trying it out and seeing if you like that experience.
If for some reason you don’t want to give up your Firefox experience, there is a version of AdBlock for Firefox, too.
This article originally appeared on Jeremiah Stanghini and has been republished with permission.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Jay Leonard.
Learn how to publish your content on B2C
Join our Telegram channel to stay up to date on breaking news coverage
Add B2C to your Google News Feed
Chrome and Firefox are the best browsers out there, although Chrome still has crash issues and bugs as opposed to Firefox but experiences may vary. AdBlock may be harmful to some companies and websites that rely on their revenue purely on ads, so if you really wanted to support a site (like a Kickstarter or an online community) then whitelisting is also an option. Not all ads are annoying, and some sites do deserve to have their ads enabled. :) Thanks for the insight, Jeremiah.
Hey Christine,
I didn’t realize that you could selectively block advertisements. Thanks for letting me/us know!
With Gratitude,
Jeremiah
I do agree that AdBlock is amazing but there’s one place I refuse to use it: YouTube. Most people don’t realize that those pre-roll adds or the banners on the bottom of the videos are how YouTube creators get paid. As business people we talk a lot these days about utilizing YouTube to its fullest potential but using AdBlock there means we’re hurting original content creators and business people.
So that’s the one place that I would recommend turning it off. Yes all ads are annoying but 5-30 seconds of my time or the 1/2 second it takes to minimize a banner are worth all of the free knowledge, news, and entertainment I get from Content Creators. Don’t you think?
You make a great point and I think this dovetails nicely with what Christine mentioned. Maybe there are some places where blocking ads isn’t the best course of action.
With Gratitude,
Jeremiah