Beware The Law of Unintended Consequences!

I use an ad-blocker on my browser. This is not because I object to advertising on websites when it's done properly, but I do object to the adverts that interfere with the proper functioning of a webpage. These are the adverts that pop-up, flash, play videos or appear in the middle of blocks of text.

Today though, I discovered an unintended consequence of my use of an ad-blocker. Out-of-the-blue most of the photos would not display properly on BEST Small Hotels, and the page wouldn't scroll down to reveal the location map when I clicked the link. It took me a very long time before I worked out that the ad-blocker was responsible.

Obviously either I inadvertently changed a setting, or the software updated automatically and became grossly over-zealous in it's way of working. Whichever was the case, I wasted a great deal of time.

If you use an ad-blocker, do beware of the possibility of unintended consequences. If you find a webpage not behaving as you would expect, suspect the ad-blocker. Try white-listing the site or the page. In my case today it only took a couple of clicks to restore everything to normal, but it took me a couple of hours to get to that point.

4 Sep 2017, 15:52