One day I visited DistroWatch.com. The site deliberately tweaked its images so ad blockers would block some "good" images. It took me awhile to figure out what was going on. The site freely admitted what it was doing. The site's point was: you're looking at my site, which I provide for free, yet you block the thing that lets me pay for the site?
I stopped using ad blockers after that. If a site has content worth paying for, I pay. If it is a horrible ad-infested hole, I don't visit it at all. Otherwise, I load ads.
Which overall means I pay for more things and visit less crap things and just visit less things period. Which is good.
not even joking
An ad-blocker /is/ security software. You don’t have to take it from me, you can read from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
> AT-A-GLANCE RECOMMENDATIONS
> Standardize and Secure Web Browsers
> Deploy Advertisement Blocking Software
> Isolate Web Browsers from Operating Systems
> Implement Protective Domain Name System Technologies
Literally their second recommendation on this pamphlet about securing web browsers: https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Capaci...
Moreover you don’t even need a 0-day to fall for phishing. All you need is to be a little tired or somehow not paying attention (inb4 “it will never happen to ME, I am too smart for that”)
Modern advertisement is malware.