Ads have become an inevitable part of our online experience. If you want to Facebook, watch some ads; if you use tweeter, read some promoted tweet occasionally; if you want to watch Youtube, watch some ads; if you watch television, there are ads; if you read newspapers, there are ads; if you watch podcasts, there are ads; if you listen to the radio, there are ads; if you play games, there are ads; worst of all, I have recently updated my blog with Google supported ads too. Why?

The Good of Ads

Ads Help You Publicize

Your business will be known by others, by no means other than ads. Words of the mouth broadcasting is a type of ads too. People watch your ads, people know your product, people learn about your product, and finally people pay you for your product. Simply put, ads are ways you increase your business.

Wait, But Why Everybody Displays Somebody Else’s Ads?

Simple. Because there are others who pay you for displaying their ads. They make more money when people pay for their product, so they pay you some for advertising for them.

The Bad of Ads

Ads Are Visually Intrusive

Think of your favorite game you’re playing. Everything is perfect about this game: you love its sound, its graphics, its control, its achievement system, its sharing functionality so that you have much more fun playing it with friends. And boom! At the bottom of your smart phone screen, a small bar stays there, rotating with some ads, maybe for other games you might be interested in playing. And it’s always there. You cannot get rid of it unless you use some extreme method, for example, rooting your Android device and install some ad removal software. Really really annoying. You know what I am saying.

Ads Are Distracting

Ads are really distracting, no matter what media it is presented in. Think of your favorite radio program. The host spends the first two minutes advertising for a totally unrelated sponsor so that you even doubt if you are listening to the program you want. Think of a newspaper or magazine. How many times do you see an unfinished article moved to other corners to yield space for ads? Think of your favorite television station. Have you ever realized you pay the extremely high cable bill just to watch some crappy ads over and over, interjected with short pieces of the program you really want to see? All the ads are designed to distract you from your focus on your work so that you can learn the relative business instead. The productivity of the entire human race is probably dragged down by 20 percent.

What to Do If You Hate Ads

AdBlock Plus For Sure

AdBlock Plus is the key to a more productive life. It hides ads on a webpage by detecting whether the particular portion is retrieved by ad ads provider. Really comprehensive lists have been gathered so most ads on the internet can be filtered by AdBlock Plus. It is free, and available to many modern browsers.

Limited Options On Mobile Devices

On iPhone, there is pretty not much you can do. Apple developed the whole idea of mobile ads and designed their platform encouraging app developers to display ads to make more money. Many apps provide paid version in which the ads are removed. It is your call whether to pay or suffer.

On Android, an option is to root your device and use ads removal software. This does not work 100 percent, but is much better than nothing. It can make your work flow less distracted, but not necessarily aesthetically better, since a blank patch would show at places where there were an ad.

Some browsers, such as Firefox, supports the use of plugins. For these browsers, the ads problems can partially be solved. However new problems arise, since non-native browsers tend to have problems with system integration.

In sum, there is not a silver bullet to kill all the ads. After all, people won’t be happy to see them paying to display ads that are actually not seen/clicked by anyone.

What to Do If You Like Ads

Admittedly, there are some ads that are beautifully designed. They are often amusing, attractive, informative, or even touching. If they were displayed at proper times not intruding your work flow, it is worthwhile to enjoy them. Unfortunately there too few cases when the perfect ads are displayed at the perfect venue/time. Enjoy them if you see one, and share with others.