The recent controversy over many advertising-funded sites choosing to block the Firefox web browser was kicked off by the release of a Firefox plugin that allows surfers to completely block out most forms of online advertising, including banner ads from major providers such as Google and AdBrite. The plugin, Adblock Plus, even succeeds in blocking text-based ads from providers such as Google Adwords and Yahoo!

At the present time, Adblock Plus – the brainchild of a team of German developers – is not the only plugin available for blocking online advertising, but it is the most popular. It has recently experienced a surge in publicity and popularity following the campaign against such software.

The plugin works by detecting ad serving code in a web page’s source file and dynamically overwriting the served ad with white space. Many site owners – and particularly those behind the campaign WhyFirefoxIsBlocked.com – are irate that their content is being “stolen” by visitors who can read it without being served the contextual ads upon which the sites depend for their profits.

At the moment, the plugin itself cannot be identified, blocked or overridden by websites. So the solution that many webmasters have resorted to is a blanket ban on Firefox users, on the basis that they are, in any case, a minority, and they can simply switch to a browser that does not support ad blocking plugins, such as Internet Explorer, to visit sites they really want to see.