That's how I feel when I surf the web without ad blocking now.

mattkevan · on Oct 11, 2015

Oh man, it's awful isn't it? I upgraded my phone the other day and it took me a little while to root the thing and reinstall AdAway.

After over six months of completely ad-free internet use it came as quite a shock as to how intrusive and distracting mobile advertising actually is.

Once I had it set up again, the relief was palpable, like finally being alone after being shouted at by a roomful of idiots.

recursive · on Oct 12, 2015

You're not the only one I've heard this from. Do you mind if I ask what kind of sites you're getting this from? I can't tolerate TV or radio ads. I've never used any ad blockers on the web, and I don't find much objectionable advertising other than clickbait link farms.

speeder · on Oct 12, 2015

I for years don't bothered with web ads, but sites got increasingly slow, sometimes some sites would time out after exchanging 10mb of data with ad servers, when the site itself had 300kb or something like that.

So I installed ad blocking to get rid of this issue...

The difference is DRASTIC, not only in performance (it feels like it felt when I switched from dial-up to DSL) but there are no more blinking and flashing stuff anymore, the browser crashes much less (because of badly coded flash ads) and some sites are much better to see the content (example: one of the most popular brazillian newspaper, Folha.com has some flash banner ads that when you mouseover they expand and cover the entire page, the problem it is really easy to unintentionally mouse over them, and then to get rid of them again is really obnoxious)

m0nty · on Oct 12, 2015

> to get rid of them again is really obnoxious

I've recently taking to switching off Javascript for just this reason. The Chrome extension "Quick Javascript Switcher" does it on a site-by-site basis. No more interstitials, cookie-warning crap, etc.

distances · on Oct 12, 2015

I'm using RequestPolicy for this. If a site doesn't load completely, just enable a couple of required sources, and you're done. It's an extra step sure, but usually needs to be done just once per site.

marssaxman · on Oct 12, 2015

Yeah, I've been doing the same. It's not difficult to switch JS on for an individual site if it's something I actually want to use. For most sites, however, killing JS just makes life easier.

mattkevan · on Oct 12, 2015

It's kind of like a noise you don't notice until it stops.

I don't mind ads when viewing sites on desktop - except for tracking, which I block unconditionally, and autoplay videos - but I can't stand mobile ads.

There's the battery life/bandwith problem, they take up precious screen space, especially popovers and sticky banners, but my real problem is that mobile is a much more personal, close up experience. I don't want things shouting in my face when I'm trying to read.

Publishers need to make money, but the cost of mobile advertising is too high.