Well I've never blocked ads but I'm aware that its possible. I might think about it... I'm getting so much online stuff for free, that's the thing, and I know that that's only possible because the advertisers are paying for it. I read somewhere that, in theory, if online advertising didn't exist, we'd all have to pay around £44/$60 per month to finance the stuff we now get for free... If I'm getting free stuff, shouldn't I, in fairness, put up with ads? Even though I ignore them (a salient point, I think...After all, I ignore telly ads or go for a pee when they come on...)? I suppose you could argue that we are actually paying even when we think we're getting it for free, as advertising increases the cost of goods that we buy...

What I think about this is that I've put up with ads as a fairly mild annoyance for a long time (incidentally, I'm Apple only these days). But it's become very noticeable that advertising is getting more aggressive and in-your-face. It often takes up the whole screen, it often contains uninvited videos, it pops up intrusively when I'm supposed to be doing something else and it often makes the screen jump around all over the place. I'd feel justified in blocking that kind of stuff, but not all ads are the same...

I could be overthinking this and maybe I should block all ads and be done with it. But a little birdie tells me that there are at least some ethical issues going on here...

I see that Adblock Plus has a "whitelist" scheme which allows ads through that fit certain criteria of non-intrusiveness, though apparently the advertisers have to pay to get on that list. Grrr....