How many visitors block adverts?

Question

On average, what percentage of visitors block adverts, for example by running AdBlock?

(The average obviously depends on the population, which is worth specifying, but any answer's better than none...)

Answer 1

You could look at the various ad blocking extensions that exist and see if they publish statistics about how many users they have (or at least how many times their software has been downloaded). This will give you a rough estimate.

One added complication is that not all users will block ads on all sites. For example, I don't block ads on Stack Exchange as I want the company to have the ad revenue (it helps that they don't serve many ads!), whereas other sites I aggressively block all ads.

Answer 2

It depends on the type of Advert:
Flash Adverts
Many users block these in FF and Chrome using extentions, but not as often in IE.

Javascript Adverts
So this would be popups or converted Flash ads (like using Adobe Wallaby to convert a swf to JS). Most users do not block these with the major exception of mobile devices.

Image ads
Are not blocked by most users. What these are is a solid image with either a full image link or a hotmap link. Most users do not block these.