Popup Ads

More regarding my advocacy of ad-blocking software:

X writes “I’m all for the suppression of popups – because they’re annoying as hell and companies that use them should damn well know better – but suppressing banner ads deprives the sites of needed revenue, which in turn helps force ’em out of business that much faster, which in turn means we get ad-free surfing but nothing to look at.”

First, I feel this software fixes severe security holes in Internet Explorer, holes that can be easily exploited by malicious website owners. Second, supressing banner ads via a locally-owned and operated piece of software prevents one person from seeing those ads: me. To my knowledge, I have clicked one banner ad in the last three years. I did not buy anything after I clicked it. Therefore, there is zero revenue to be gained from me. Even if I did see the ad, I wouldn’t buy the advertised product, thus the ad image is simply wasted data that I’ve involuntarily downloaded to my PC. As my PC is my personal property, to do with as I choose, I choose not to waste my resources downloading things I don’t want. Third, it is not my responsibility to keep websites in business. It’s nice that there are websites to look at. However, if these sites cannot come up with a business model that will allow them to stay operational, tough. This is called business in the real world. If all the content-providing, interesting to look at sites all shut down because nobody clicked on their casino/hotteensex ads, I’ll go read a book.