Ads: Don't Block

Most of us hate advertisements. Be it in newspaper, television or the Internet. One of the most popular add-ons for Firefox is Adblock Plus, which regularly update the list of the advertisers and block them before they get loaded. The other popular browsers like IE, Opera and Chrome also provide the way to block ads in some or the other way. Of course, nothing can't be done about newspapers and TV.

We do not like ads because they take space, waste our time (and badwidth too) and for those with limited data plans the precious bytes. However we forget that advertisements has made it possible for the masses to get free access to the information for free or at very low cost. We get news, articles and the very important Google (all tools with search included) for free because they draw their money heavily from the ads.
Many people are self employed due to online ads.


I feel that ads are necessary. Ad-blockers are good, but in the end it may happen that we might have to pay for monthly search on Google (ugly huh!)


But the ads on the websites today have gone frenzy. There should be at least some minimum ethics so that it doesn't hit the end user heavily. These might be:

1. Ads placed so that they do not obstruct the content. Ads placed in between downgrade the original purpose of the visit to the site.

2. Ads should be clearly mentioned as ads, not the part of the article whereever they appear. Some companies pay for putting ads and links without the disclamer from the advertiser. It reduces the credibilty of the website, if your reader is cheated by the company (even if he isn't, because you are putting things you don't know about)

3. Text ads and images are fine, but the ads with heavy flash content and recently which automatically stream audio and/or video are very annoying. They consume too much bandwith.