There’s been a decent amount of hysteria on some of the social news web sites about a new campaign to block Firefox users. The reasoning behind this is because Firefox has a plug-in that allows you block ads.  Proponents of this campaign argue that this robs website owners of the opportunity to make money from their site. You can see the campaign’s website here:

http://whyfirefoxisblocked.com

The majority of people who are reacting to this seem to be upset about this. However, after doing a bunch of googling, I was only able to find one site that is participating in this campaign (and it sucks).

Anyway, I figured I’d give my opinion on this issue since I’m sure I’m in the minority. Frankly, I don’t see why so many people are getting upset. If a website is going to block you, just don’t visit that website. There are millions of places to go on the internet, if a handful of sites want their ad revenue and you don’t want to look at ads, just don’t go to those websites. For every site that blocks Firefox, I’m sure an alternative will spring up somewhere.

I kind of like the ad revenue based system though, since it allows a lot of stuff to be free. Most sites I visit have a tasteful display of ads. If I go to a website and they ambush with lots of crap, I just never go there again. I’d hate to see this model replaced with a model where ads are injected into the actual content (movies and TV shows sometimes do this). I wouldn’t put it above sites to do this either. They’re going to make their money one way or another (or disappear).

As a site note, according to my web stats, 37% of the people who visit this website use Firefox. 52% use Internet Explorer, and the rest use a variety of other browsers. I guess that’s indicative of a more web savvy audience.