Ad blockers rise as ads annoy, bog down websites

LOS ANGELES -- When you visit a website, you often find yourself waiting and waiting for advertisements to load.

Video starts playing automatically, and animated ads jump in front of what you were there to see. The seconds tick by.

It doesn't have to be this way.

There are easy ways to block such annoyances, and Apple is permitting apps that block ads in its Web browser for iPhones and iPads.

All this might help users navigate, but it also threatens the livelihood of websites and publishers that depend heavily on advertising revenue -- companies such as Google, Hulu and The New York Times.

While the rise in ad blocking isn't causing panic yet, publishers and content creators are watching.

Already, some websites are taking steps to reduce the annoyance so users won't turn to ad blockers. They also are subverting the ones out there to make sure they get paid for delivering news and entertainment.

"It is possible to be too alarmist about ad blockers, but it's a very real phenomenon," said Joshua Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University.

It's one thing if just 5 percent of iPhone users install an ad blocker; it's another if 80 percent do, Benton said.

If today's ad practices get too annoying, he said, they could disappear just like pop-up windows, which many browsers now block automatically in response to consumers' annoyance with them.

Over the years, websites have been more aggressive at delivering ads that break through the noise and target specific customers more precisely.

But websites also are filling unsold ad space by turning to ad brokers to deliver pitches that are less and less relevant.

Every little bit can slow down or freeze your browser.

"I think publishers got very out of hand in terms of what they put on," said Dean Murphy, 28, a Yarm, England, app developer who responded by creating Crystal, a $1 ad blocker for Apple devices.

Craig Smith, a 47-year-old website developer in Musselburgh, Scotland, said Twitter started showing him ads for adjustable waistband trousers not long after he and his followers discussed how ridiculous his grandfather's trousers looked in a photo.

"All of a sudden you're getting hammered with stuff you've got no interest in," he said. "It just makes the whole browsing experience really unpleasant."

PageFair, a firm that seeks to counter ad blockers, said worldwide usage of ad blockers grew 41 percent from last year to nearly 200 million people.

That's 6 percent of Internet users worldwide, including 16 percent in the U.S., 37 percent in Greece and 25 percent in Germany.

PageFair estimates these tools will block nearly $22 billion in ad revenue this year and $41 billion next year.

The threats to websites are about to get bigger.

The ability to block ads, long available on traditional computers, arrived on Apple's mobile devices with a recent software update, iOS 9.

Apps with these capabilities -- going by such names as Purify Blocker and Blockr ---- quickly became top sellers.

These tools affect only the Safari browser and won't block ads inside apps such as Twitter, Facebook and Apple's own News app.

Google's Android system also allows ad blockers in Web browsers such as Firefox, as long as they don't affect unrelated apps.

Many websites already have countermeasures for ad blockers.

Hulu, for instance, simply replaces commercials with an unskippable message prompting you to turn your ad blocker off. Or, you can pay Hulu $12 a month to go ad-free.

Meanwhile, some companies are paying developers of ad blockers such as Adblock Plus for the right to bypass them.

Companies that benefit a lot from search ads, like Google and Microsoft, pay for the privilege, the Financial Times reported.

Microsoft declined to confirm the report. Google didn't respond to requests for comment, although the list of Web addresses that get a pass includes many from Google. Hulu declined comment.