so...is adblock a bad thing? (now with additional question)

I wouldn't use it...
If they have kept commercials modest...
Right now they slap commercials everywhere before you watch any movie or other way.

I read this, took a deep breath and realized that if you do the maths we are all being ripped off. EVERYBODY'S time is worth something. So why is it considered fair practice to take MY time and bandwidth with content i neither asked or actively searched for and not pay me. Sure a ten or thirty second add may seem harmless enough but think on it, how many did you watch today?, how many were video? how many MB was that in bandwidth? How many times were you misled due to dodgy pop-ups? Multiply this by the number of days you are on the net, multiply that by the number of users....I won't go on but you can see where i'm going here. I bet if we went back to the old dial-up days you would all be jumping up and down about adds slowing down and clogging up the net (and for those not old enough to remember, that's exactly what happened) instead now it's just accepted. It's similar to the person who puts junk mail in your mail box demanding you read all of the catalogs before you can read the actual mail delivered by the mailman. So to sum up, pay ME or get somebody else to watch your unsolicited garbage.

Adblock is a great thing. I should never look up at the little icon at the top of my Google Chrome window and see that 14 ads were blocked.

For lack of seeing a better argument I'd like to see a poll of those of you who would rather be charged to access a site then have ads. Seeing as ads are seen as a highly bad thing what methods would you people like to see used instead of ads. I'd like to see this due to the fact sites do have to pay for people to use them. Though I doubt anyone really will do this most of you people only have the argument that ads waste your time. . . proving that not only are you activity refusing to support others you demand that they flip the bill for your freeloading.

Prove me wrong. . . . Go. I'll give a game to the best answer that involves

A) The third party of which you demand entertain you isn't harmed.

B) You get to share in the creation of said entertainer's creation.

C) doesn't disrupt the current flow of the internet.

With Ad-Block it's like I'm browsing the web in 1997 again. I guess if you grew up with ads everywhere on the Internet it's not a big deal to you, but I'm glad I can escape them now.

Definitely good.
if you like some site, just whitelist it.
and for YouTube - no longer whitelisted mostly because this ad...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IWI32MHIAc

Nobody likes ads, but if you want to support a website or a certain YouTuber you should whitelist them, because that's what usually makes them running.

As others have noted, Ad Block / Plus (AB/P) is a double-edged sword that can be a "wedge issue"...

On the user's side... let's face it, Ads suck. View a page in Internet Explorer (which doesn't have AB/P support... or at least to my knowledge) & you're bound get to assaulted by some type of pop-up or flash animation with audio or video that's bound to annoy the hell out of you. They also add time & bandwidth to load them up for something that you're probably not interested in.

With AB/P, it takes out all those annoying ads that are plastered on the sites to give you a quieter & less annoying experience... granted Text Ads can still get through (if you leave it enabled), but those are generally small (under 1 KB) & inoffensive. It takes you back to a time where banner ads (being only static JPEG's OR animated GIF's) were only the worst offenders.

On the webmaster's side, AB/P becomes a threat as sites who are dependent on page views for ads are getting denied those hits & are losing on the revenue that it generates... which makes it a bit harder for said site to continue to operate as desired. Those who are aware of AB/P can detect if a user has it installed & can either make a plea to the user to disable it for their site OR (for the less tactful sites) block them from utilize their services until it's disabled. HOWEVER, the Ultimatum Option rarely works on those who have AB/P installed as they could visit another site with similar services, causing a permanent loss of users.

The same can be said for NoScript (for Firefox) / NotScript (for Chrome) as well, but there's a harder approach with that add-on & most have it installed for paranoia insurance (as it prevents an unknown site from running anything on that browser unless the user actively permits it).

If there's a site or a person that you want to support without throwing money their way... disable AB/P for their pages.

The only bad thing ive ever noticed about it is it seems to stop working after every firefox update.

Though I do not condone the use of adblock on the little guys. . I will recommended the use of ad block on bad sites and More so Facebook. Upon hearing of the lunch of Video ads on FB I will give full kudos to those refusing this stuff put down your throat. Many people misunderstood when I posted my claim. . .I had said "The use of adblock to deny the people who entertain you" referring to the people of YouTube who work hard trying to keep up viewer counts and sites like this that need the ad revenue to keep sites like these running. As for Facebook: They make a shit ton of money already and this is just appalling. . . To force people to watch videos on your phone and while you deal with friends. . . bullshit. Also I've heard (my not be true) they have a team working to counter adblock. . . in short Fuck Facebook.

Years ago - before I started using adblock - I happened to be on a news page and move the cursor towards a link I wanted to open. Then, magically, the moment the cursor was there, a pop-up window appeared in that same place and I ended up clicking on the new link - it was a split-second that made the difference. It was the first time, I thought it was coincidence. Then it happened again, on a different website. Then again. Really? How did it happen that ads were allowed to get his far? I'd rather do without this shit and anything similar.

Now first thing I do every time I install a browser, I get noscript + adblock installed. I find it painful to watch most pages without these plug-ins.
If the ads were non-obtrusive I could do with them, but by these days they too often change the whole user experience of many websites. And then there are the dodgy ones, with links to infected pages. I've had to clean friends' computers from malware they got this way.

So my opinion is: I understand that I may harm some websites by cutting their revenues, but not using this plug-in would be risky, costy (in terms of time to download the extra content, then manage/watch those ads), and generally annoying (poor user experience). Maybe anyone who got the ads system to this point - including google and their 'we scan every email that goes through our servers then send you some tailored ads, but that's ok' approach - shall only blame themselves if users have had to come up with resources like ad-block? Well now it looks like even ad-block won't be enough to keep google out :/

I don't see a win-win solution right now, but the best I can do is to whitelist some websites.

It is a good thing because it protects you from annoying things like websites with 5-10 adds on the front page (and yes, some gaming websites do this), or youtube videos with 30 second ads. I disable it to support websites or youtube channels I like, but I enable it for everything else. I think I'm already bombarded enough with television advertisements everyday and I don't want to deal with even more ads everywhere I go on the internet. The way I see it, website owners should place ads, but make them non-intrusive. Don't make video ads with autoplay,because they're very distracting, or autoplay ads with sound, and don't place them everywhere. People will forget about the content of your website if all they see is ads, and won't come back.

Rarely see an advertisement, so definitely a good thing.
Only downside is on some websites it blocks too many elements. So if you think the website is not working properly, you have to disable it temporarily, refresh the page, and then it works again.

And its definitely good for youtube. You can just click on a video and start watching. Instead of having silly commercials before the video starts.