Here’s some feedback I just submitted to the people who work on Firefox. I decided to put my 2 cents in after reading this article, which links to this site. I’m certainly not going to block all Firefox users from my sites – I think Firefox is an excellent browser and I think more people should be using it – but if I could I’d display a polite message to any Firefox user who’s also using an ad-blocking extension and ask them to white-list my site. Firefox not offering publishers a way to detect the use of a certain plug-in makes them complicit in the loss if income that occurs.
“I’m a happy Firefox user, but as a publisher who relies on advertising on my Web sites to make a living, it’s disheartening to see the way Firefox has embraced and even endorsed the AdBlock plugin, allowing people to use my server resources and deny me the income I need to continue to offer that content.
The issue here isn’t that the extensible Firefox design has allowed for someone to develop a plugin that someone else doesn’t like – the issue is that Firefox offers no way for me as a publisher to DETECT the use of that plugin on my site. If I could, I’d display a polite request to the people using it for them to white-list my site and allow the ads to show. I’ve found most people don’t understand how Internet advertising works, and they don’t realize that by just allowing the ads to load they’re helping the Web site. Many people think that if they don’t click on the ads, they might as well block them.
Please, do something to help the people who create the majority of the content on the ‘Net, giving it away for free, with the only request being allowing a few banner ads to load.
Sincerely,
Jason Dunn”