Even with AdBlock Some Websites are unreadable! [Rant]
Part of my daily routine is to scour through thousands of RSS News feeds.. mostly the subject line and then if it catches my attention I'll read the article. Like watching or reading the news on steroids. The one major problem I am finding these days however, is the fact that even with adblock plus ad blocker extension installed on my Chromebook some websites I land on are almost unbearable with all the pop ups that still continue to show up. Top that, many of these 'tech sites' have an adblock blocker which produces a big blank pop up that tells you it recognizes you are running an adblocker and in order to view the website you first need to turn the adblocker off and then refresh/restart the browser in order to read the website material. Of course for me, I simply close the website and say "screw you-I"ll read the information some place else". In fact when I come across a video on a website that first has an ad that I must go through, unless there is a 'skip' within the first few seconds I will close the tab and move on. I know I'm not alone here and many that own these websites are probably saying "well what are we supposed to do, this is how we generate revenue to stay afloat" and I get it.. but there has to be some limits to the amount of "crap" that you place on any given website. I mean it is one thing to have a 15 second ad that starts at the beginning of a video clip, so long as you can 'skip' it after the first 5 seconds and that should be it. No more pop ups after this. Heaven forbid you scroll down the page only to be presented with more video ads that start to run automatically as your mouse pointer breezes over it.
Advertising has ruined the internet and it is certainly not getting any better. Just look at facebook (or not). One thing I notice on the individual news feed is a lot more video. You watch one video and then you are placed in to a 'see more videos' after this--when they typically have nothing to do with what you just watched-- a random video buffet ensues!
I am sure everyone has their own way of dealing with this sort of thing, just as I choose to either be patient and get through the video ad to watch my content or 'disable the adblocker' to view the content of a website. There will may be a time where a clean internet feed becomes available--but not without a price.. likely pay for clean surfing is just around the corner. I"m sure there will be an app for that sooner or later!
Just as CBS Now app for those TV cord cutters has the 'commercial free' option for an additional $5/month, making it $10/month to watch just the CBS Feed. Of course if you were to do this for ABC, NBC, FOX and a few others, you would quickly realize your TV viewing is costing you what it did when you had cable/satellite TV. The big difference being you are getting content which is what you are paying for. This same method of web surfing will sure to be within our near future.
