Advertising is a form of hostile content. Advertisers mean us harm. They might have some tenuous moral right to try to expose me to their manipulation, but I am not obliged to co-operate and my moral right to protect myself is much stronger. This is implicit in every form of advertising. You are not doing anything immoral by buying a magazine and then not reading any of the ads it contains.

Arguments against ad blockers require that there are not alternate ways of exploiting content production, or any reasons to produce content other than financial gain.

Sometimes I see how some friends and relatives browse the web. From googling a recipe to watching hours of youtube videos. Shockingly, they spend like 10% of the time staring at advertisments, waiting for them to pass by. Sometimes, when they are close friends, I "confront" them about it and 90% of the time their answer is "I didn't even know you can block them". Not once have I heard "I do it to generate money the creators and or websites".

My girlfriend used to show me youtube videos on her phone and she used a "trick" where you report the unskippable ads or whatver and then you get through them quicker. Having to wait for HER ads to pass started to annoy me so much that I upgraded my YouTube subscription to family. Now her and her siblings get to enjoy ad-free YouTube content.

uBlock Origin or the built-in adblocker, depending on the browser I use. On iOS I use AdGuard.

I treat adblockers the same as an antivirus at this point, there have been multiple times that I've seen ads for scams and malware, so I save myself the headache and use an adblocker. I believe it was Linus from Linus Tech Tips who said adblocking YouTube ads is piracy, if so then call me a filthy pirate.

As I can remember I have always been using ad blockers. The few times I don't is when I buy a new device and I have to setup the browser, but the first thing I search is the browser store and install uBlock Origin. The internet is unusable without it, too many ads, too many sponsored sites. Without an ad blocker I would probably not use internet this much since the experience is awful

I use unlock origin because it blocks ads and other annoying web features like cookies and newsletters popins.

Fuck ads. They always fuck me when I try to make money online. If the only way I'm allowed to make money is with "a real job" then they should "get a real job" too. Fuck 'em.

Adblock and Sponsorblock. Also Enhancer for Youtube that hides those pesky YT Shorts.

Why? Fuck ads, that's why.

Been using adblock for years now, I haven't seen a single ad on my devices since then.

Last week my wife used her iPad so we could watch a video and I saw 2 ads in a row, it was kind of a strange experience.

If a creator needs money I'll donate directly to them, and if the only way to support is ads, then what a shame, I'm not gonna watch ads just because of a creator.

I do, because they are my devices and I get to choose what they do. Not some content creator.

Absolutely. Ublock origin which also blocks YouTube ads and running a pihole for my home network for the rest of the devices.

I use ad-blockers because I'm not a masochist. 🤨

I use adblock wherever I can as ads have only become more annoying and intrusive over time. It's incredibly frustrating going to a site and having three banner ads covering 60% of the screen, or seeing an unskippable ad interrupt a YouTube video every 90 seconds. It's wasted time I will never get back, and it feels like theft of my life. I wish I could have adblock everywhere outside of the internet.

I use ublock origin: https://ublockorigin.com/

The internet is unusable without a good adblock.

I use AdBlock, PiHole, and several tracking protections because I'm fucking tired of being treated like a product by bigtech. I also have various websites blocked on the DNS level, using only privacy-respecting frontends (youtube, reddit, twitter)

I block all ads, I rather tips some moneroj or sats to creators, buy some merch, etc. From my point of view giving 5$ to a creator will be more profitable for him/her than watching a hell lot of ads

I turn it off on YouTube after I saw they rolled out the content blocking expedient for ad block users. But for everything else I leave it on, except twitch because the twitch community already get shafted by the 50/50 split.

I don't, because I know that ads are part of free content "agreement"

I don't use ad blocker while at work, except to block YouTube ads.

I use a mix of uBlock Origin and NextDNS to block ads. I would support creators if they or the platform itself can clearly mark which part is an advertisement. I also donate to creators I think are adding value with their contents. Unfortunately, majority of creators aren't being very upfront on whether or not they're sponsored, platforms are mixing advertisements with legitimate contents/results.

Every now and then I turn off my ad-blockers (Pi-Hole, ABP, uBlock Origin, and Ghostery) for a particular site that I feel bad for blocking...and then re-enable them all once all the adverts -- and sheer volume of trackers -- spew data left, right, and centre. Unfortunately ad-blockers are just like condoms: they keep your machine virii-safe[r]. Much better use of your time, and likely better for a creator's pocket, is supporting them via Pateron or whatever gubbings they offer.

I also have an alternative use for uBlock Origin too -- blocking webpage elements on certain sites (such as WRC) that like to spoil things on their landing page when all you want to do is login and watch the event without being spoiled...!

Probably close to 20 years ago at this point, when visiting the official forums for a game I loved, my computer was infected by malware delivered by a malicious ad. This was not some seedy part of the internet, but a website hosted by a major game publisher whose product I enjoyed.

Try as I might, I could not revert the damage caused by the virus, so the only recourse I had was to just blank slate wipe it clean and start over.

Today, I acknowledge that most websites more tightly control the ads they host, but the trust is forever broken. As soon as the option became available to me, I installed the best adblocker I could find and never looked back. No exceptions.

The truth is that every ad is malicious, to small degrees. They want to commodify your eyeballs and take up space in your mind. They're trying to create a need where one does not exist, and will use whatever tactic they can to try to part you from your hard-earned money. They're a barrier between you and the content you want to enjoy—in many cases content that you paid to enjoy.

Even if it's in the name of supporting a website/service I enjoy, I can't confidently turn off my ad blocker anymore. It only takes one malicious ad to sneak through the cracks to cause disaster.

There has got to be a better way of running an online business without having to completely fill the space with ads.

yes of course i use adblock it is like the condom of internet at this point.

the money that the creators earn from ads per user is such a low amount that my time and attention are not worth it, like for youtube we are talking $0.001-0.002 per video view for an average creator. it is beneficial for both parties if you simply donate and use adblock.

i also find the data hoarding personalised ad model predatory and privacy invasive

yes :) if i like something, i will pay for it. as opposed to giving google 97% of the creator’s ad revenue

Ads are mental poison, so yes.

I used to on my phone, but then i started using foss apps and disabling JavaScript, so i never see ads unless sponsors are in a yt vid i watch

The argument to turn off your adblocker is like a circus ringleader demanding the audience’s money for the sake of the lion, even while he beats the lion.

Yeah I use adblock. Why wouldn't I? Webpages load faster, browsing is safer because I'm not accidentally misclicking on dodgy links, I don't have unnessesary junk in my screen (i already know I'm not interested in 90% of what they're trying to show me, so why bother)...and most of the creators I follow don't care and actually encourage the use of adblocks (instead of, say, calling me a pirate and misusing that word). I'd rather throw on an adblock and throw them a few bucks on thier patreon or donations. They earn more that way than ads anyway

I use adblock almost everywhere, except for a few sites with decent ads and creators I support.

Apart from that, I try to support the few creators I appreciate the most in other ways.

I've used it for the past decade. Literally the only time I see ads is when I look at other people's devices and wonder how TF they use them.

Yes. I once was using an old laptop for travel and didn't care if it got lost. It hadn't been updated years but I got a nasty virus from visiting Spotify once that embedded itself into the tcp/ip stack. Not that I cared much for the laptop but it was a wakeup call that ads contain viruses. I've ran adblockers before that incident on my main computers but since it was old I didn't I have everything up to date. Since then I've made sure to install ublock origin on any computer I touch. Even friends and family with their permission.

I could write an essay on why I block ads but the other comments sum it up pretty well.