Is being able to do it without breaking any laws (which I assume is what you mean by possibility) really your criterion for ethical behavior?

Nah, the legal thing doesn't even come in, even if it breaks laws I'd still do it.

The possibility means lack of preventative measures on their part, like a pay wall or allowing only some custom TPM-based browser which forces the viewing of ads.

I own my hardware, it does what I tell it. That's about as far as the ethical side of this goes. Ad companies getting to invade my privacy and send me malware is certainly not ethical. Especially if they use my own hardware against me to do so. If they don't play by any rules, neither do I. So when it comes to getting annoying ads and their related problems out of my face, anything goes.

Ah, so if for example your neighbor leaves his door unlocked, you think it's fine to steal his stuff? I'm not saying that's the same thing as blocking ads (not even close) but it sure seems to fit your "lack of preventive measures" criterion for ethical behavior.

You're ignoring that the web server is configured on purpose to give these things away without asking for payment. If your friend is standing there in his house, and when you ask to borrow his stuff he says yes and hands it to you, that's a lot closer.

It's not just a lack of prevention. It's a purposeful, deliberate choice to send this content even if you're not paying or loading the ads.

"If your friend is standing there in his house, and when you ask to borrow his stuff he says yes and hands it to you, that's a lot closer"

Closer. Its more like if your friend says you can use his car, but you need to pay him $x per mile. So you use an odometer changing device to make it look like you didnt actually use it.

Nah. The sites are very deliberately not charging because they want more users. An analogy that involves a bill isn't appropriate.

True. But they can only afford to not charge because of the ads. I guess we will see how this plays out :)

Stealing his stuff results in a direct loss for him, rendering a page you were already given without a few components isn't remotely comparable.

Maybe a better analogy would be to walk through his lawn if he didn't put a fence up. This probably does about as much damage to his lawn as bandwidth would be wasted on you as an ad blocker.

I'm not saying they're comparable (in fact I explicitly said they aren't), I'm just saying that there's either more to it than "they didn't stop me" or you're applying your criterion inconsistently.

And wasted bandwidth isn't the real issue, unless the business in question's only expense is bandwidth.

> And wasted bandwidth isn't the real issue, unless the business in question's only expense is bandwidth.

Well then what's the issue? Bandwidth is the only thing I'm costing them really, the only difference between me going there and me not going there is bandwidth. If I legitimately couldn't use the site due to a pay-wall I wouldn't go there. Unless there's some secret way to make me pay for content that I'd only consume if it's free?