No. Not only do I run "Ghostery" and "AdBlock" in my browser, I also run DNSMasq as a DNS aggregator. I then use dnsmasq.conf to alias a lot of ad sites to 127.0.0.1.

Advertising is so close to lying, that I feel very comfortable in doing this.

"Advertising is so close to lying" - that is a very limited view on marketing which plays an essential role in any business. It's more about seduction than about lying.

Seeing advertising as a lie is a black and white (true/false, all/nothing) view of things. Viewing the world under this lens will make you most often frustrated and bitter. The world if not black or white, it's full of colors.

Would you be ok if AdBlock sent an identifier to the website so the website could choose to block you if they wanted ?

Yes. But I don't think I'd run AdBlock at that point, not because I would be blocked from certain websites, but rather because that would be giving away too much information to a bunch of known liars, cheats and con men. Like I said, advertising is so close to lying, and advertisers cross the line from encouraging to lying so often, that I don't want to give that much real info away.

If I couldn't block the ads for some legal reason, I'd try to come up with a way to fake-click on ads, so as to spread disinformation about myself. The advertisers are almost certainly lying to me, so I'm going to lie to them.

Some website already dectect adblockers and at least "warn" users. I find this perfectly fine

Never, because it's unfair to the advertisers. "Donating" other people's money and feeling good about it is a bit ridiculous.

Why should I care about being "unfair" to advertisers ?

Because we're your family, friends, neighbors, local shop owners and other people you share society with? Most AdWords advertisers are people running small businesses. "Advertisers" is not a separate class of entities that doesn't intersect with other people you care about being fair to. It's not morally OK to purposely spend our money as if it were yours just because nobody will stop you.

They are the people, ultimately, who pay for the content on those websites. Although, I totally agree that the advertising model is broken. When a blog's insightful articles are paid for by the sensationalist blogspam, we've got a problem.

I do. I always wondered if others did this as well. I also wonder if that is OK to do... probably not.

It's not OK.

Advertisers don't want you to do this since you're spending their money for no possible gain. They only advertise with the expectation they'll earn more than it costs in new sales. Too many clicks for the purpose of donating to website owners and that won't happen, so they'd have to stop advertising.

Networks don't want you to do this because if advertisers can't make a positive return on investment, it doesn't make sense for them to advertise with that company, and they'll go elsewhere or go out of business. Either way, it's a threat to the network's existence.

Morally, it's very much not OK, for two reasons:

1) Small businesses have to market themselves to make people aware of what they're selling in order to survive. Simply opting out of advertising because some people are abusing it to give their money to website owners is not an option. Neither is advertising somewhere else for millions of businesses; Google controls too much of the ad space and traffic. There are no substitutes in many situations.

2) If you work a normal job, telling advertisers to accept this situation is the same as telling you that a condition of receiving your paycheck is that random people on the street have permission to reach into your pocket and take some money out whenever they want. That's what clicking on ads just to give money to website owners is. You may or may not have enough left over to pay your bills. Sound good?

It's just a click. For it to matter so much whether I am clicking this link or that link with the right intent, that all this supposed meaning and morality hangs in the balance, that it could make all this difference, it all seems so absurd. Almost makes me want to disable ABP, Allow Scripts Globally (dangerous), shut my eyes, and just start clicking. None of it really matters.

Eh, I think I'm done with the Internet for today. Might run afoul the click police.

> It's just a click [...] that it could make all this difference, it all seems so absurd

It makes more of a difference to an advertiser than your vote makes in the presidential elections. Do you vote?

Also, keep in mind that the largest part of the money you just "donated" goes to Google and not the web publisher.

It's officially not OK, but it does work. Just never do it multiple times in a row.

As a user we are free to click whatever we want but if you do too many clicks on one site, that site owners account might get suspended.

Occasionally I will disable adblock on a website that I like, so that they atleast have a chance of making money off me. But having said that, I generally dont click on ads.

I never do because I know people actually pay money for those clicks. Imagine paying 1.25 per click. You could waste someones entire ad budget for the day in a few minutes.

I block ad's because I don't want to see them no more than I would want to see them in a library. But I'm sure advertisers would rather me block their ad's than to click on ones I wasn't genuinely interested in.

Never, but after reading some comments here I might start.

I block ads because of the obnoxious practices of some of the ad networks. I let some ads through from networks or individuals that are not obnoxious to me.

I also remember the early days when a slow ad server would keep a whole page from rendering (Hello ESPN)

I do not click on ads, unless it's that 1 in 1 million chance I want to see their product.

I also don't block ads.

No, that's click fraud, which could cause the very publisher you want to thank to have his/her ad account blocked.

Never. If I find an Internet resource that is useful I tell my friends about it on Facebook. Whether or not they follow ads on the site is up to them. (I also tell my friends about AdBlock Plus, Ghostery, and Social Fixer, so that they don't have to view ads if they don't want to.)

Well,it's good for the blogger but not for the advertisers. It also doesn't sound ethical.

Check out Adblock Edge. It's ABP without the acceptable ads.

I never thought anyone else would do something like this too, but yeah I do it all the time

Ads are just a way of making money. I'm fine with them as long they don't disturb the user experience(video ads that run load in the background, click under, and those tricky ones )

I've never done this and was unaware that other people did.

Yes, sometimes. Only if I'm at least 10% interested, though. I won't click an ad for thanks if I have 0% interest and will immediately bounce.

not unless i'm genuinely interested in the ad.

pretty sure this is click fraud

Years ago, I belonged to a forum that added ads at some point. I indulged my curiosity about those ads in part out of genuine curiosity and in part to support the forum. I suspect I was not the only one. The forum owner initially made pretty good monthly money from the ads. As the forum went to hell, his ad money dropped off in a way that I think reflected lack of support more than it reflected declining traffic.

Yup.