AdBlock Plus defeats German publishers in court

[Mulreay]

The creator of software that stops adverts from appearing on websites has defeated two news publishers that want to prevent its tech being used on their pages.
The owners of Germany's Die Zeit and Handelsblatt had claimed that AdBlock Plus's product was anti-competitive and threatened their ability to make money.
But a court in Hamburg ruled that users do have the right to use the plug-in.
The judgement has implications for other disputes involving the tool.

Full story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32409952

[Geek-9pm]

Thanks for the  information. I am going to get the Firebox plug-in and try it.
With my limited vision, pop-up ads are very intrusive and make it hard for me to read. IMO, pop-up ads ought to be  judged by a court. They confuse and ms-direct users.
This is the official web site. They have a short video.
https://adblockplus.org/

What is Adblock Plus?
Adblock Plus lets you block annoying ads, tracking, malware and other things you may not want in your browser. Adblock Plus is an open source project created by Wladimir Palant in 2006. Eyeo was founded in 2011 by Wladimir Palant and Till Faida to make its development sustainable.

But am I missing something? If a web site wants ads on their own site, why not just do it in a way that does not annoy the user?   

[halstead]

Adblock Plus doesn't force users to install their plugin in user's computer. It is on user's decision if they want to install the plugin or not.

[evilfantasy]

☆Fun fact: "Good" advertisers can pay the ABP developer to whitelist their ads.

By default Adblock Plus allows certain ads (for a fee) but you can disable the "non-intrusive" ads in the settings. It's the nonsense, deceptive and/or intrusive ads that get blocked by default. There are also multiple other ad blockers available and a few have a fairly large user base. ABP is just the oldest and most well known.

On another note, playing devils advocate,  you can manually whitelist and blacklist ads in ABP. Most of the internet depends on ad revenue. If your favorite website has non-intrusive ads then consider not blocking them or just blacklist those that are annoying.