I was torn about whether to write this or not because ads are the lifeblood of a site or blog. And ad-blocking software, in such context, is heresy. But still, this is a major milestone and, I’ll be honest, I use Adblock Plus myself, which has just reached the magic 1.0 version.

Anyone tracking Firefox add-ons will know that most of them are in the 0.x version range, meaning, all in beta status. Considering how most everything is released as a beta product nowadays, yet still considered ready to release to end users (e.g., Gmail, Office Live, and on and on) that’s not a big deal, but Adblock Plus is one of the most downloaded and used Firefox add-ons.

And why not? It effectively blocks not just pop-ups, but inline ads in your browser. Last month Firefox add-ons reached the one billion download milestone, and generally up there every week among top downloads is Adblock Plus.

But while I admit using it, and have to applaud its performance, it and other ad-blocking software are still controversial. After all, much as with the effect of the PVR on television ads, ad-blocking software will affect the revenue of just about every site, including this one.

There has even been discussion that litigation may ensue, someday.

It hasn’t happened yet, however. And thus, while I tread a fine line with loving no ads, for both bandwidth reduction and sheer cleanliness for website viewing, I also do the following: if it’s a site I want to support, I make sure to use Adblock’s feature to disable it on that site, which I hope you would do on my site.

At any rate, a heartfelt, though reluctant congratulations for the 1.0 release of Adblock Plus (you can download here).