Accidental Ad Blocking

[Tahaneira]

So, I was surfing around the net the other night, and I noticed that a few sites were telling me that I had an ad-blocker enabled. This is news to me, as I have never gone out of my way to download such a program; annoying as advertising is, I have to pay for my favorite websites somehow. So, I go to see if I can find this program and disable it.

Trouble is... I can't find it. I've looked through my security settings and I can't see anything that outright says 'blocks banner ads on Internet browsers.' I'm hesitant to just disable anything that could be blocking it, so I decided to come here first. Little help?

I run Firefox, the free version of avast antivirus, and Windows 7. Thanks for your time.

 

[Melon Hunter]

In that case, it's probably best to check Avast first. If you have an Avast plug-in for Firefox, have a look at the options, as the Chrome version has built-in blocking of things like Analytics tracking. It's possible the webpages are noticing that and displaying their passive-aggressive ad-blocker notices rather than the adverts themselves. I've certainly noticed that behaviour myself on a few websites. I don't think Avast's browser extensions explicitly block adverts, but they may appear as ad-blockers to the webpages you're visiting, seeing as they block most adverts' functionality. Failing that, see if the Avast program is doing anything to fend off adverts.

 

[Hazy992]

You're not running anything like NoScript are you? That can block ads if you don't whitelist the website you're on.

 

[Tahaneira]

In that case, it's probably best to check Avast first. If you have an Avast plug-in for Firefox, have a look at the options, as the Chrome version has built-in blocking of things like Analytics tracking. It's possible the webpages are noticing that and displaying their passive-aggressive ad-blocker notices rather than the adverts themselves. I've certainly noticed that behaviour myself on a few websites. I don't think Avast's browser extensions explicitly block adverts, but they may appear as ad-blockers to the webpages you're visiting, seeing as they block most adverts' functionality. Failing that, see if the Avast program is doing anything to fend off adverts.

It appears that it was the Avast add-on that was doing it. Everything's showing up in all its garish, highly annoying glory. Thanks!