Recommended Posts

I hate and love adblocker at the same time.

Love reason: Because it gets rid of all the messy ads on the web page.

Hate reason: Because if you own your own site, it decreases your chance to earn money by A LOT.

Damn, I wish the internet would remove adblocker.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1124428-i-hate-love-adblocker/
Share on other sites

I'm talking about random sites you visit. I'm pretty sure you don't whitelist all sites you visit?

All ads can **** off, if there is a blocker, I`ll block them

If a site deserves supporting (such as Neowin which I will be re-sub'ing to soon) then they'`ll get my money, ads will not.

I hate and love adblocker at the same time.

Love reason: Because it gets rid of all the messy ads on the web page.

Hate reason: Because if you own your own site, it decreases your chance to earn money by A LOT.

Damn, I wish the internet would remove adblocker.

You can't have it both ways, YOU block sites to get rid of the messy ads, then complain about it costing YOU money on your site?

I'm talking about random sites you visit. I'm pretty sure you don't whitelist all sites you visit?

I don't trust most of the people I know to put things on my computer, why would I trust some random website to have my best interest in their minds/hearts/site?

I'm of the mentality of block everything. I get that you won't earn much money, but as said ads are not the only way to make money.

Ads drive people away IMO. Good content brings them in and possibly makes them pay if good enough.

I use adblock on everything (except my own sites for testing - just in case it blocks something it shouldn't. The sites i've made have never had an ad. Not one put there by me anyway!)

Also, do people really click ads nowadays? I always tell my computer-illiterate family members/friends "NEVER click ads, especially ones that say you win something"

Do what buyandsellads does.. Disable the CSS for pages with Adblock. Cell your CSS file "ad.css" and I bet it disables it. You can also include a message that you shouldn't use Adblock on your browser to view the site correctly.

  • Like 3

Do what buyandsellads does.. Disable the CSS for pages with Adblock. Cell your CSS file "ad.css" and I bet it disables it. You can also include a message that you shouldn't use Adblock on your browser to view the site correctly.

Yeah was thinking about that, thanks for the reminder!

Ad blockers are a must-have for me - it's the first plugin I install. They save bandwidth, and reduce browser/plugin CPU load. And no more annoying animated ads on web pages.

Seriously, who clicks on ads? I've never seen the reason to. And a lot of them, I wouldn't trust anyway - especially how they track users.

I even tape shows on TV so I can fast forward the ads. Ads and myself - we just don't mix.

  • Like 3

I'm talking about I'd rather have no adblocker at all and make everyone see the ads.

I'd rather have adblocker and avoid all the flashing/blinking/loud/moving/distracting/ and on and on... and let's not forget all the security problems that go with them. Ads probably drive people away from sites faster than bad content, broken links and bad layouts combined.

I understand why sites need ads, but if you can't survive using text ads, then ads aren't going to save your site from extinction. The more you try and force ads onto people, the more they try and figure out a way around them. Avoiding ads has been going on since the remote control was invented, think about it, listening to the radio or watching TV - ad comes on - station changed. It will always be that way, I don't want to buy what they or you are selling, so I don't want or need to listen/see your ad.

^ Yeah excellent way to make people avoid your site entirely!

:rolleyes:

No kidding, ask Ars how breaking their site for the ad blockers went.

I love adblockers because they

speed up site load times, (Modern advertisements are essentially videos)

decrease CPU use, (No need for browser to render some animated flashy thing)

create a better distinction between content and advertisement, (Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between content and spam)

don't waste bandwidth on a video about some car/Viagra/Lenovo/etc, (I don't care)

protect my computer from malicious scripts, (De-facto #1 infection vector are advertisements)

make my head hurt less (flashy, annoying, etc).

I hate adblockers because,

Hulu doesn't work as well as some other websites.

I'm talking about I'd rather have no adblocker at all and make everyone see the ads.

Nobody is forcing you to use an adblocker. if i am forced to view ads then they go "Blocked". Give users a choice.

I use admuncher to block ads, i wouldn't be clicking them even if i could see them so they are of no use too me. The gigabytes of data i save monthly by NOT loading them is of actual value though given the bandwidth constraints we australians contend with!

Another admuncher user here though i also have adblock installed for the ads that admuncher will not remove (facebook).

As said ads are nothing more than bandwidth eaters, i never click them so there is no need for them to be on the page, making a website look ugly and slowing down its overall response time because its loading some crappy ad! Plus as bitbucket said not everyone is on unlimited internet like myself, for example my grandad is on 2gb a month and is finding it hard to keep under that limit and he barley uses it other than ebay, email and searching for holidays and checking out what the areas look like.

Here are my stats for this month, normally higher but ive been on xbox.

Statistics for Ad Muncher v4.93.33707/4341

Adverts removed: 42,289

Bandwidth saved: 1,244 MB

Counter started: November 16, 2012

I hate and love adblocker at the same time.

Love reason: Because it gets rid of all the messy ads on the web page.

Hate reason: Because if you own your own site, it decreases your chance to earn money by A LOT.

Damn, I wish the internet would remove adblocker.

White list your own site, and implement an anti-adblock script?

And be forced to get one of those annoying pop-up ads that blocks you from closing the windows with javascript or even the ones that redirect you and block you from hitting back, then open another window with the same thing and irritate you?

No way. There's better ways of monetizing web content on the internet that annoying ads. I mean some sites punish users for blocking ads by making it inconvenient but those sites end up driving people away.

Some websites have gotten ridiculous (like Salon I believe) with whole page ads that block the article when you visit the site. Those sites just end up not being visited. If you really need the revenue then maybe you should rethink your strategy.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Posts

    • And the fact that the majority of people from Poland are white European Christians while the people you are complaining about in post after post are not is just a coincidence... Every sentence in your post I am replying to is racist nonsense. None of it is actually based on any facts whatsoever. All immigrants are seeking a better life too. It's literally the only reason they would risk everything and leave their homes, families, and homeland. They are working and contributing to the economy too, as you even admit. They get the same benefits your partner did AND that YOU are eligible for as well. That is one of the key things of the EU and a mark of a civilization. That is the definition of a society where everyone is given a chance, treated equally and fairly, and is judged by the content of their character, not their different skin color or which version of ignorant superstitious nonsense their parents lied about as children. Racists around the world said the same things about the Irish and Jews and Poles (like your partner) and...every other immigrant movement over the centuries. What's your family's heritage, by the way? Were your ancestors lied about with racist fearmongering crapola by self-entitled locals the same way as you are now? If someone like that said the same things about all people from Poland, like your partner, would they be right? Or would you want them to judge your partner based on who they actually were, not where they just happened to come from?
    • Again, this is an irrelevant attempt to attack the messenger. The truth does not require any justification.
    • Removed the blue and underline as you did not post a link. This would also  be considered spamming.
    • Why it's almost impossible to produce a smartphone in the United States by Hamid Ganji If you look at the back of some Apple products, you can see the famous phrase “Designed by Apple in California, Assembled in China.” This phrase appears on products from one of the largest smartphone brands in the United States. These products are designed in the U.S., but their manufacturing takes place in China, India, Vietnam, or even Brazil. But why can’t Apple, as one of the largest American tech companies, produce its iPhones on U.S. soil? The idea for this topic came to me after the Trump Foundation launched a smartphone called the T1 and claimed that it was designed and built with American values in mind. However, this claim did not last long, as it was revealed that Trump’s phone was actually a rebranded HTC U24 Pro, with only a gold case and minor internal component changes. You see? Even a phone that is supposed to represent American values is manufactured in China. With a gross domestic product (GDP) exceeding $32 trillion, the United States is currently the world’s largest economy, while China ranks second with around $20 trillion. On the other hand, the United States is by a wide margin the global leader in various technological fields, and American companies spend hundreds of billions of dollars annually on research and development. From Apple and Google to Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and others, American tech and industrial giants lead their foreign competitors in many sectors. The United States also has no shortage of smartphone brands. Apple, Google, and Motorola are among the major brands in the smartphone market, collectively holding a significant share. However, the vast majority of their products are manufactured outside the United States. So why is it that the world’s largest economy, home to the most advanced technology companies and industrial powers, cannot produce a smartphone on its own soil? Let’s explore this question together. Even threats to impose tariffs won’t work After Trump entered the White House as the 47th President of the United States, his administration adopted strict tariff policies. One of these policies was the imposition of a 25% tariff on smartphones manufactured outside the United States. Trump said he “had a little problem” with Apple CEO Tim Cook over producing smartphones outside the U.S. So he thought that threatening a 25% tax on imported phones might force Apple to bring manufacturing back to the United States. “I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhones that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Image via The White House Although Apple currently manufactures some of the iPhone’s chips in the United States with TSMC's help, it still shows no willingness to shift full iPhone production to the country. At the time, renowned Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote on X, “In terms of profitability, it’s way better for Apple to take the hit of a 25% tariff on iPhones sold in the US market than to move iPhone assembly lines back to the US.” However, manufacturing a smartphone in the United States is not as easy as it might seem, and many technical and economic barriers are involved. The lack of necessary manufacturing hubs There is a clear reason why many companies prefer to manufacture their products in China. China has established itself as the main global manufacturing hub for international companies, and over the past few decades, large contract manufacturers have emerged there, allowing companies like Apple to outsource production. One such example is Foxconn, which also manufactures some Apple products in India. Building the infrastructure required to produce smartphones in the United States would require tens of billions of dollars in new investment. Factories would need to be built, essential manufacturing equipment would have to be installed, and, most importantly, a skilled workforce capable of operating these systems would need to be recruited and trained. The United States currently lacks the core infrastructure needed to manufacture smartphones, and for this reason, many companies prefer to outsource production to Chinese contractors rather than spend tens of billions of dollars to build that infrastructure, which is significantly more economically efficient. Additionally, building such infrastructure in the United States could take up to a decade, ultimately leading to a significant increase in the product's final price for consumers. Shortage of trained labor in the U.S. compared to China Decades of serving as a global manufacturing hub have allowed China to build a massive talent pool in the production sector that is almost unmatched worldwide. Today, if a company chooses to manufacture its products in China, it can be confident that the workers involved in production have years of experience in their respective roles and are capable of producing high-quality goods with minimal errors. Even if we assume that tens of billions of dollars were invested in building smartphone manufacturing infrastructure in the United States, finding skilled workers would remain highly challenging. Apple CEO Tim Cook visiting the iPhone 6 assembly line in China in 2014. Image: Tim Cook on X In a 2015 interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes, Tim Cook said the main reason Apple isn’t producing in the US is a lack of skills. "China put an enormous focus on manufacturing, in what you and I would call vocational kind of skills. The US over time began to stop having as many vocational kinds of skills. I mean you could take every tool and die maker in the United States and probably put them in the room that we're currently sitting in. In China you would have to have multiple football fields,” Cook said. Also, in 2017, at the Fortune Global Forum in Guangzhou, Cook once again emphasized the importance of highly skilled Chinese workers. “China has moved into very advanced manufacturing, so you find in China the intersection of craftsman kind of skill, and sophisticated robotics and the computer science world. That intersection, which is very rare to find anywhere, that kind of skill, is very important to our business because of the precision and quality level that we like. The thing that most people focus on if they’re a foreigner coming to China is the size of the market, and obviously, it’s the biggest market in the world in so many areas. But for us, the number one attraction is the quality of the people,” Apple CEO said. Higher labor costs in the United States Producing almost any product in the United States is more expensive than in many other countries, and one of the main reasons is the higher cost of labor in the U.S. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, median weekly earnings of full-time workers in the United States were $1,235 in the first quarter of 2026. Meanwhile, the average annual salary in China's private sector in 2025 was RMB 71,590 (US$9,961). In many parts of the world, the weekly wage of an American worker is equivalent to several months of income. Another important factor to consider is that in the United States, the workforce capable of working on a smartphone assembly line is highly specialized and therefore commands higher-than-average wages. According to an estimate by Bank of America, producing an iPhone in the U.S. is technically possible, but “iPhone cost can increase 25% purely on higher labor cost in the U.S.” However, this 25% increase applies only if final assembly is performed in the United States while components are still sourced from China or elsewhere. In this case, the price of a base iPhone would rise from $799 to around $1,000. But in another scenario, if Apple were to produce the required components for the iPhone within the United States, production costs could increase by more than 90%. Trump’s dream for a “Made in the USA” iPhone might never come true In a free-market capitalist economy, one of the primary responsibilities of any CEO is to maximize profit. Using Apple as an example, Tim Cook’s role is to maximize the company’s profits so that it can fund research and development for new products and invest in areas such as artificial intelligence, while also keeping shareholders satisfied. Therefore, it is entirely understandable that Apple would choose not to bring its manufacturing back to the United States and instead keep production in countries where labor is cheaper, and products can be manufactured at a lower cost, thereby maximizing its profit margins. What is your opinion about manufacturing smartphones in the United States? If you are an American citizen, would you be willing to pay hundreds of dollars more for a smartphone made domestically in the USA? Let us know in the comments.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Conversation Starter
      jessse3334 earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • Reacting Well
      JuvenileDelinquent earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • One Month Later
      Excellence2025 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Excellence2025 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Week One Done
      flexorcist earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      506
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      196
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      153
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      72
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      65
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!