I read an interesting article on The Register about the Firefox Plugin AdBlock Plus, the article covers a bit about the current favourable relationship between Firefox and Google which could be threatened by the increased usage of products that block adverts from being displayed.
I am no fan of adverts on websites, as you can see; this site is devoid of adverts for the conscious reason that I find them distracting. Many adverts can not be controlled, if I add adverts to a page then I am leaving some of my screen space open to be used by another company, doubtlessly this company will have different views on what is appropriate, perhaps they promote content I would find objectionable (betting or breaking of game rules for example).
This of course doesn’t mean that you can’t make any money out of blogs and other user generated content, my personal preferences is contextual links, not the automatically generated JavaScript kind but the ones that the author puts in his or herself. For example affiliate links to Amazon or Barnes and Noble for books and music, Eclipse Internet to recommend as an ISP or EVE Online to encourage people to join you in-game. So many companies run successful affiliate programs why do so many people still invest so much time and clunky and unappealing design constraints just so that they can include an advert?
I would be really interested in the thoughts of readers, does anyone else use AdBlock? do adverts on sites annoy you? or do you see them as a fact of life, after all they do pay for the free content we are consuming?