Why Firefox is Blocked (!)

[#1]

I came across this today (though as a link for a sensible site, not as a redirect from a stupid site)
http://whyfirefoxisblocked.com/
It's a message explaining why some site owners have apparently decided to block all firefox users because the firefox extension ad block plus is "robbing them of their income".
There are at least two major problems with this:
1. anyone who goes the hassle of installing an ad blocking extension will not be clicking on the links anyway so there is no lost revenue
2. the firefox blocking code relies on the user agent string and anyone savvy enough to install an ad blocker will have no trouble installing a user agent switcher extension
stupid, stupid, stupid if you ask me (which I am aware, you didn't). Has anyone come across a site that blocks firefox in this way?

[#2]

Quote from: PJ

I hope ... that someone develops another extension soon that will spoof sites into thinking users are visiting with another browser.

Such as this one for instance? 😉

[#3]

Humorously, Adblock Plus are working on a release for Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera...

What they gonna do then? block them too??
Barry

[#4]

Actually I'm sure Norton internet security used to include an ad blocker that worked with IE. has that been removed from more recent versions?

[#5]

Quote

There are worrying privacy aspects of the tracking cookies as well

Such as?
Remember cookies are restricted to the domain that created them so in addition to making our lives easier by maintaining personal and log-on information on websites the only thing you could call bad is when add networks use them to monitor our preferences and serve us targeted add's which I think is a good thing.

[#6]

Reading some of the posts in various places linked from the AdBlockPlus website it seems my reaction to this story has been the same as many other peoples:
An hour ago I didn't have AdBlockPlus installed.
I do now!

[#7]

Now don't blow me away straight off.... But some advertising is ok, I quite like some advertising! I better qualify that real quick 😉
I can't stand too much advertising. I can't stand porn advertising. I can't stand intrusive advertising, I can't stand badly targeted advertising and many more bad types of advertising.....
BUT, I love properly targeted niche advertising!
If you have a hobby or a passion and that drives you to a website and you find advertising related to your hobby or passion that is great provided that it doesn't spoil the enjoyment of the website you are visiting. I have been on may voyages of discovery through appropriate ads placed on sites that I enjoy. I have even found folks that I now count as the most reliable and cheapest suppliers in their field.
BUT, I would love a little button that I could just click for certain sites when I don't want to see their advertising... Don't give me blanket banning.... Give me control!

[#8]

Quote

These serve no purpose beyond profiling you based on the sites you visit and I take significant efforts to block them.

We are always going to have advertising so it may as well be targeted, at least that way the ads may be of some interest.

[#9]

I guess its just a matter of opinion; I see it as a good thing, the advertising networks will get a good picture of me, who I am and what I use the Internet for so hopefully one day I will start getting relevant and potentially interesting ads.

[#10]

I found this link too a couple days ago (Tamlyn a /.'er? :P) and felt compelled to read the endless amounts of drivel that they posted on the site. They are hugely pro-IE in the way that all the Microsoft fanboys are, where they quote very vague and/or fake statistics. It's very easy to block IE users too, maybe everyone should do that since even CERT have advised against the use of Internet Explorer due to it being a security risk

Firefox 3 is (reportedly) going to eliminate the threat of cross site scripting. I'm quite sure this will push people into the Mozilla camp, unless Microsoft released a new version of Internet Explorer which equals this (which I very much doubt they will do).

EDIT: Oh and to correct a previous poster, Firefox currently dominates 34.5% of browser market share, with the increase being 0.3% to 1.1% each month since January 2007

[#11]

Yea, I quite often keep an eye on the usage stats, it's always interesting to see that kind of information. (Also, on an unrelated topic, some researchers have developed a tool that rates how accurate information is on Wikipedia, wish they made one that kept it up to date! lol).
Link to the usage stats is:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

[#12]

I agree with the point about blocking specific groups. Do they think that the user will think to themself "Oh, they have disallowed use of Firefox, I'll just use Internet Explorer and go to the website"? Of course not, I for one wouldn't. I don't block ad's because I know they bring revenue to websites who sometimes rely on advertising to keep the site running. I do, however, object to massive amounts of advertising and if I surf to a site which falls into that category, then I simply leave it.
If they NEED people to go onto the page with advertising, then the best method would to hope that people don't have ad-blockers installed in their version of the browser, not to block all users of it. However, on the up side, I've never found a website yet that blocks Firefox users from viewing

[#13]

Quote from: MikeWhitehead

EDIT: Oh and to correct a previous poster, Firefox currently dominates 34.5% of browser market share, with the increase being 0.3% to 1.1% each month since January 2007

The browser poll in these forums is currently showing 60% Firefox: Linky
Just proves what an intelligent lot Plusnet users are.

[#14]

Quote from: jelv

The browser poll in these forums is currently showing 60% Firefox: Linky Just proves what an intelligent lot Plusnet users are.

Hooray for PlusNet users! What a smart bunch we are