P. surfs happily with no ad-blocker, no script-blocker, and only the built-in pop-up blocker in FF. I’d rather die. I need Adblock Plus and Filterset.G, I need NoScript, Remove It Permanently and NukeAnything Enhanced. Couldn’t bear the internet without them. I don’t mind tasteful text ads, or image ads as long as they stay still and don’t take up half the goddamned page, but I can’t stand anything that flashes, moves, covers content until I click to make it go away (Flash ads), makes any sound or otherwise competes with the page content for my attention, so I block them. I guess I’m really doing the advertisers a favour because I am the kind of person who will deliberately blacklist a product if I have seen an advertisement for it that particularly annoyed me, and I’m fantastic at holding a grudge. I am not an impulse buyer, and if I’m coughing up anything that is even a reasonably significant amount of money, I do my research first; nobody is going to sell me something without my knowing exactly what I’m doing. I’m the one Best Buy doesn’t want to see come through the door because although I might look around, I’ll buy what I came to buy and nothing else, and I will walk out empty-handed if a salesperson is pushy (and anything much beyond, “May I help you?” falls under my definition of pushy). Control freak? Probably. Do I care? Nope.

I sometimes watch TDS and TCR on CC, and I really appreciate their putting up full episodes without commercials. Sometimes, though, I go to Hulu to watch other shows. If it’s a full episode, I don’t mind advertising too much; I mute the commercials the same as I do on TV, and sometimes get up to get a drink or something, but I will usually turn off Adblock for the duration of the show. This morning, though, I wanted to see a clip from Family Guy because it was referenced in an article. It wasn’t the whole episode, just a clip, and it was only 41 seconds long. In order for me to see that, Hulu expected me to sit through a 30-second commercial. I know because I watched the little countdown at the top of the black screen I get when I block ads. I didn’t turn off Adblock because I never dreamed they’d have ads before short clips. I can understand it for full shows, but clips? C’mon. Just 11 seconds less than the content I wanted to see, and I’m supposed to watch it? Nope, not fucking happening. In fact, now that I know they force full-length commercials even for clips that barely fall outside Fair Use, Hulu can fuck off. Now, I’ll never turn off my ad-blocker, and I’ll even sit there and watch the counter, congratulating myself on seeing all of the content without their getting one red fucking cent. Not that they ever made any money from the fact that I once did turn off Adblock, but now, it’s on principle.