17 August 2007
Sites banning Firefox out of spite
)Published on August 17th, 2007 @ 03:07:35 am, using 1599 words, 12654 views
This evening I checked out a website (http://planet.intertwingly.net) which had linked to my Acura mobile computing blog and, while there, noticed an interesting article on a recent attempt by site owners to block visitors using the Firefox web browser from accessing their sites. Their protest stems from the fact that one of the many available plugin extensions for Firefox, the AdblockPlus extension, allows internet users to free their web browsing experience of intrusive and often resource exploitative advertisements. These sites have begun to employ various blocking scripts, essentially user-agent sniffers, to detect the Firefox browser and prevent access to the page and its content. The rationale (I apply the term loosely) is that these sites are losing advertising revenue due to the fact that internet users who demand a clean and streamlined internet experience are avoiding the ads displayed on certain web sites.
Being a loyal Firefox user since the initial beta releases many (many) years back, and a naturally inquisitive person, I decided to check out the site which is, apparently, spearheading the effort and serving as a soapbox for all those site owners who feel they are being cheated by internet users who have the AdBlockPlus extension (myself included) installed.
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