Firefox Will Kill The Internet

[FearMonger13 0]

Firefox, a great new browser that everyone loves. And why shouldn't they its free, stable, secure, light weight, customizable and gives you any feature that you could possibly want with extensions. But these extensions could be responsible fo the death of the internet as we know it. One of the very first extensions that anyone installs is AdBlock. It blocks ads from any and every site you visit. Great isn't it. Not really, because the ads are responsible for keeping the rest of the site free. For example Gmail, it gives you loads of space and loads of features but its free, because of the Google Ads on the side. If everyone started using Firefox [ and AdBlock] then Gmail wouldn't be free. And that goes for most websites, including [probably] Xisto.So, lets take a moment to thanks Microsoft, whose monopoly over the browser market keeps the the free and safe against the threats of open-source creativity.

[zetzx 0]

Well, not all sites use ads to keep alive some from donations. But I don't really mind the banners it's just the pop-ups (I use IE)

[Spectre 0]

Many, many sites that provide a service for free (hosting, email, etc) rely on some form of advertising for revenue, or at least to cover the costs of providing the service (other than strictly non-profit organizations, anyway). People obviously aren't going to be all that interested in providing a service to complete strangers that they will never meet out of their own pockets. So yes, blocking all advertising without exception is likely to cause some sites to shut down (I don't use FireFox, so I don't know how this extension works, and whether or not it can block anything other than pop ups).

[FearMonger13 0]

ADBlock can block any component of a webpage, based on the rules in the block list. Say if you add *doubleclick* . it will block all objects with that has 'doubleclick' in its url, therfore blocking all Ads served by DoubleClick [a company that serves ads]. You can even block. You can right click unblocked images and iFrames by right-clicking it and selecting AdBlock This.

[floresid 0]

First of all, I love that you titled this thread " kill the internet" w/ a name like FearMonger, I read into it just to make sure it wasn't a joke.Secondly, I think Firefox would have to earn a few hundred million client(probably closer to billion) to make a big enough change to how sites gain money through banners.

[FearMonger13 0]

First of all, I love that you titled this thread " kill the internet" w/ a name like FearMonger, I read into it just to make sure it wasn't a joke.

Thanks.

Secondly, I think Firefox would have to earn a few hundred million client(probably closer to billion) to make a big enough change to how sites gain money through banners.

Think Again. Take a Look at Live.com, its a new site belonging to microsoft and when visited through firefox it has a small sentence in red at the top saying "Firefox support coming soon". Don't you miss the days when the red message said " You are using an unsupported browser, please use Internet Explorer 6 or above".

My point is if Microsoft starts making their sites Firefox compatible, its a huge success and a huge step forward for Mozilla.

Let me quote Oscar Wilde who once said, "Pray Microsoft doesn't mess up Internet Explorer 7".

[believer 0]

the title is pretty catchy, yes adblock can certainly block those ads but do you really think internet is only used for ads? In case ads are not available on the internet now, do you think Intel will vanish or shall we say MSN/Yahoo will close?Yes sometimes ads are really annoying but I just let it run that way, what annoys me most are pop ups.I'm sorry to disagree with your notion my friend, firefox cannot close/kill the Internet

[truefusion 3]

I'd just like to mention, that eventhough Internet Explorer doesnt have the extension 'AdBlock', you can still block sites. Though, it would require more manual work to block a site.

[Tyssen 0]

Funnily enough, I was just thinking of this notion today and was wondering what consequences it might have for business on the Net. I'm not sure it'll kill it though cos Internet marketing now is substantially different to what it was five years ago, so I'm sure it'll just evolve into something different.

[T100 0]

I don't agree with you. The whole point of your argument is that the Internet (I think you mean World Wide Web instead of Internet. Don't mix the two up. World Wide Web is just an application of the Internet. Many of the services provided on the Internet, say FTP, are free of ads from the first day. The most used application, P2P, are still free today) must survive with money. This concept is wrong. Consider such programs as Linux and Firefox, they are all nice applications given to the world free of charge. They can still survive, why can't the WWW? As a matter of fact, with the popularity of non-ADSL connections, say FTTB and FTTH and even VDSL, most of the users in East Asia (esp in Japan) can now afford the bandwidth cheaply for home hosted severs. As a result, they are choosing to host the servers at home instead of commercial providers. There are many "home-run" servers in Japan donated freely to internet users and they don't force ads into your page. My friends in Hong Kong are mainly using 10MBit connections and 100MBit connections for the purpose (along with FTP, of course) and it costs only US$12-25 per months. Plus, there is no limit on bandwith. With FTTB getting popular, I think there will be a time when most webhosts are free and without ads.

[FearMonger13 0]

Yes even though it is possible to edit the HOST files to block ads, its too troublesome and the average person wouldn't bother.Although Firefox and Linux can survive, you probably know that they are open source projects and people contributed to them. That is volunteers did a lot of work. People don't make free stuff unless they get something in return. Even a site run entirely by volunteers such as Wikipedia, holds occasional fund-drives to raise the money for hosting costs. However donations aren't always effective. I wouldn't probably donate money to Google. But might end up clicking on some of their ads.I agree however that Firefox wouldn't kill the net. It would probably evolve into something worse so I must agree that the title of this thread is misleading. It is as Oscar Wilde once said, "Never judge a forum thread by its title, it might be misleading".

[Spectre 0]

It is very unlikely that it is going to shut down the entire web (as in, it is not going to happen). It is even unlikely that it will cause the shut down of any sites, unless all of the visitors to that site use FireFox and AdBlock, which isn't likely either. But FearMonger does have a point. People insist on having everything for free, and yet they refuse to accept those services which are advertising supported, which is ludicrous. Take Xisto, for example - the hosting is 100% free. You never, ever have to pay a single cent (although you can pay for quality web hosting if you wish). Obviously, OpaQue doesn't just 'magically' obtains the resources to fund this site from nowhere - they come from forum-based advertising, as you can see. If all Xisto members were to use FireFox and AdBlock, or other equivalent programs, to block these ads, then OpaQue would be forced to shut the free service down.

FireFox and most Linux distributions are supported by donations (whether financially or otherwise). They both receive a great deal of support from very large communities, and cannot be compared to web sites which rely on advertising revenue to remain free.

[psychiccyberfreak 0]

woah woah woah, let's backtrack here. Ads are annoying, yes. They also support web sites, true. You can choose to block them, but in most cases people are afraid they will get TRACKING COOKIES whick LOG ALL OF YOUR DETAILS and FAVORITE WEBSITES so they serve ADS THAT INTEREST YOU. Some people want PRIVACY, so they block them. So yeah, firefox may kill the internet, but free services are what you pay for. They are not guarenteed, and most people when they like a site, donate. So ads are just a cheap way to make money and woulden't be very good anyway. When's the last time you've seen an ad online that you've actually clicked? I only click them to support that certain site. Still, some people don't use the ADBlock tool. So it's a huge topic, that's what I know.

[dontmaimyourself 0]

It might just be me but I quite like ads on websites and so managed not to install adblock, anyway if it does get to such a stage where this happens I'm sure some resourceful company somewhere (I'm gonna suggest Google or Microsoft) will manage to get round ad block of course then that means adblock will just come back stronger and the cycle continues untill the entire internet is demolished and the economy crawls to a halt. And hey if it got too bad Microsoft could always buy the internet.

[Florisjuh 0]

"Thank microsoft"? Microsofts awfully bugged Internet Explorer also known as Internet Exploiter, is probably why browsers like Firefox are here in the first place!I am a firefox user, but I aint using adblock, since I think sites deserve to have the income from the ad, but I dont dislike people who have a plugin like adblock, since they dont want slow loading pages and big flashy banners and stuff like that.There are bigger problems on the internet like hackers. Hackers can kill the internet, but browser with a plug in?...