I'm also using them because ads are annoying and obnoxious, devious and underhanded. They track me and sell my info to others without my permission and do everything in their power to make surfing the net as frustrating as humanely possible. They have had years to clean up their act,but it's not going to happen...Then they pitch a tantrum when,after years of being abused by them,we fight back.

Well guess what,they brought this on themselves and they can cry and moan all they want. I'm not here to support their business model and look at their stupid crap.

. I have no interest in what they are selling and even when I had a tv,I muted ads and found something else to do while ads were on. Also,it's my computer and I decide what is shown on my screen. While I use Linux,I don't worry about ads injecting stuff, I know it happens.(Forbes anyone?)

No company has the right to tell me how I use my computer.

In a nutshell, The advertising industry wants to remove your freedom to control your own computer.

Users are using ad blockers to protect themselves from annoying malware and poorly-designed advertising and web formatting. They're also using ad blockers to help protect their wallet from broadband provider overage fees. Block the blockers, and you're blocking an effective consumer technology tool.

BTW, 8 ads are blocked on Techdirt.

Not only that, but the amount of virusses and other crap being transmitted through ads, and the fact that some sites use overlay ads that are hard to close, or have auto-playing video-ads next to their content that you're trying to read, force people to run ad blocking tools on those sites in order to protect themselves.