User blog comment:Brandon Rhea/Making Ads Better: The Basics/@comment-3474542-20170119194010

I block unacceptable ads. I do this for many reasons. I understand, and accept, the need for ads. HOWEVER!! That does not mean that I am willing to give ads carte blanche control of my web experience. (This is one of the reasons that I stream TV shows & movies instead watch them on cable -- TOO MANY COMMERCIALS!!).

A few of the reasons I use an adblocker are:
 * Security - Since I've installed an adblocker (many years ago), the amount of malware that I've had to deal with on my computer has gone down by 200% (with no real change in the type of sites that I visit). I also don't have to worry about accidentally clicking on an ad while I'm trying to navigate a page.
 * Medical - Ads with sounds can be painful or damaging to my ears (or speakers) if not calibrated correctly. Some ads with movement or flashing can cause migraines or seizures even for non-sensitive individuals.
 * Performance - Ads, unless they are text only, use bandwidth, RAM, and CPU resources on my computer. It's nice that some people can afford to throw away money on a new state of the art computer every year (and the data/bandwidth plan to go with it). However, I (like many others) have finite resources.
 * Professionalism - How can I be expected to trust a website for factual information (or even light entertainment) if it's serving me the same type of *** that gets flagged as spam by my e-mail server or malware by my security software? I'm not talking some weird no-name vendor that frequently gives false positives here. I'm talking about trusted mainstream vendors like Avast, Bitdefender, McAfee, Norton, etc. Not to mention the fact that it's difficult to actually read and comprehend a webpage if you can't tell where the content is because of the ads.

Now, you may have noticed I mentioned acceptable ads. While I think all ads are evil, I recognize the fact that they are a necessary evil. Some ads are more or less evil than others. For a list of criteria for acceptable ads, see here. In addition to the ads types listed on that website, I will concede that the ads that play before videos on YouTube are also acceptable...but only because they are carefully curated and monitored, and otherwise adhere to the acceptable ads policy.