Adblock Plus is the piece of software behind the recent Block Firefox campaign controversy. A simple, short plugin for the Firefox web browser, it allows surfers to completely block out the majority of graphical and text-based contextual advertising.

From the surfer’s point of view, this has three major advantages:

·         For those on slow connections, it speeds up page loads and can prevent stalling caused by the ad serving process. People connecting to the web in a hurry, via a cell phone or with a dialup connection, can find this invaluable. Using a Firefox plugin such as Adblock Plus is less of a blunt instrument than simply turning off browser graphics: relevant images can still be loaded, but ads are blocked.

·         Graphical ads are increasingly making use of large Flash files, and, increasingly, video. This makes for large file sizes. Heavy use of sites which use graphical and video ads can significantly increase bandwidth usage, increasing costs on metered tariffs and possibly resulting in penalty fees from some providers.

·         Video ads, or very bright and colourful animated Flash ads, can be very distracting and tiring for the user to have on the page. Some are simply impossible to block out mentally, and looking at them for a long period of time, as some professional web users have to, could present health risks.

Given these advantages, it is easy to see why Adblock Plus is very popular among the Firefox user community – which, although it represents a small number of overall web users, is made up of individual members who tend to spend more than the average amount of time online.