Marketed under such brand names as AdKiller, AdSubtract and Junkbuster Proxy, the software has been quietly spreading among Web users for the past three years. More than 4 million people have downloaded WebWasher, a Siemens spinoff, and InterMute's AdSubtract expects to have 2 million users by the end of the year. Ad killers may be on the verge of critical mass. Boston-based InterMute expects AdSubtract to be packaged with 70 percent of modems shipped in the U.S. by June. InterMute's marketing VP Walker Whitehouse says the company is close to sealing deals that would bundle AdSubtract with some of the largest PC brands.
Viewers can skip the ads entirely.
The temptation is hard to resist, even for the chairman of the Internet Advertising Bureau, Rich LeFurgy. But LeFurgy won't use software to block Internet ads. On the Net, he insists, ad-blocking software's user base is too small to be of any significance. Software makers are doing what they can to prove LeFurgy wrong. In addition to bundling their products with modems and PCs, they continue to seek customers online.