Notice to Web advertisers: If you stick a video on a Web page that starts with blaring noise in the middle of the night, the only thing you accomplish is that I close the bleeping page in a mad panic, and I make sure never to visit it again.
Moments ago, this is what happened when I visited a page on the Montreal Gazette’s Web site, trying to read an article, only to have a car commercial start without any interaction on my part, at maximum volume.
I don’t know what car was being advertised. I don’t even care. I just swore and scrambled to click the Close button.
This is unpleasant even during the day, insanely annoying late at night when you worry about waking up family members, for instance.
I hope that one day, the idiots who believe this form of advertising is appropriate will all have their eardrums pierced in a most painful manner by excessive noise.
It appears though that I am not alone: there is a study suggesting that such loud ads are bad for business.
As for me, against my better judgment, I just decided to install AdBlock Plus on Chrome. Let’s see if it works as advertised.
Personally, I’ve been very happy with AdBlock Plus. What concerns you about installing it?
I generally try to keep the number of third party components in my primary Web browser to a minimum, in part due to security concerns. I also do Web-based development, and extra components may interfere with the rendering of content that’s under development.