Re: BTW, thought here
I have never ever bought anything in my life being prompted seeing an advert
Are you sure about that? Adverts come in all shapes and sizes and while I personally would contend that I have never (for example) bought a particular brand of breakfast cereal having just driven past a billboard advert, I cannot honestly say that I have never been influenced by things such as Amazon's "customers who bought this also bought" - which is definitely a type of advert.
Then there are the more subtle things. Is it "advertising" when I go to a retailer such as Misco or Dabs or CPC and click on "computers... hardware... components... hard discs..." and there is a list of "best sellers" at the top, followed by a list of hard drives sorted by "relevance"? (and how come they can remember my preference for prices with/without VAT but not my preference for lists sorted by price?) At the very least this is "promotion", and what is promotion if not a form of advertising?
What about when I go to the supermarket to buy my usual "Brand A" but find that "Brand B" which is usually more expensive has a "promotional offer" which makes it cheaper? The promotion is a cost to the manufacturer in the hope of persuading me to change my buying habits so in all but name it is exactly the same as an advert.
Can you still say with such certainty that you have never been influenced by an advert into buying something?
I like NoScript and I have it installed on all copies of Firefox. I do not use a specific ad-blocker, but I do try to avoid some trackers using Ghostery. NoScript is, however, a bit of a pain when you first start using it as there are so many things that just do not work without Javascript. Google Maps "When you have eliminated the Javascript, whatever remains must be an empty page" is a particular gripe, but getting some e-commerce sites to work when they embed SagePay and it doesn't immediately show up as being blocked is a pain. Eventually I work these things out and get some things whitelisted. Other things I just "temporarily allow".
Certain other people I could mention just avoid the issue and continue to use the well-past-its-sell-by-date copy of Safari that Apple won't update because the Mac is too old.
What I can say for certainty is that I have never "clicked-through" a third party advert on any website I visit...
M.