For those of you who don't know what Adblock Plus is, it is a Firefox extension that blocks most of the ads you see on websites.

Some people say that using this extension is equal to stealing. Is that so?

The argument that says it is stealing goes something like this. "My site is payed by ads, if you come to my site and turn off ads I can't pay for my site, therefore you are stealing."

I don't think this argument is valid. As an Internet user, while browsing the web I have many options: I can turn off JavaScript, I can turn off cookies, I can even not allow images to load. Blocking ads is just another one of the options that I as a user should have.

Why should I be exposed to unwanted ads everywhere I go? Some of the ads place unwanted cookies on my computer, some significantly slow down websites load time, some show images that I wouldn't want to be exposed to and are just annoying. They decrease my browsing experience and increase my blood pressure.

I'm not saying that all ads on the Internet are bad. If a website wants to run ads, I would suggest using locally hosted ads, these will most likely not be blocked by Adblock since they wouldn't be listed in any filter list.