Mike, who writes a popular motorcycle blog, "Bikes in the Fast Lane", posted a compelling article today, claiming that Firefox's plugin, "Adblock" is threatening to shut his website down, and that he's lost a lot of income as a result...

Over the last 3 months, ad revenue has decreased 700%!!!! I know we're not the only site suffering from this, others are in the same boat. Some sites are now blocking Firefox users altogether (you can't see Adblock, only Firefox). Adblock is killing the internet!

You can read his full article here, and note all the comments too...
http://news.motorbiker.org/....motorcycle-news-site-to-disappear.htm

Interestingly, I wrote an article about Firefox Adblock a couple of years ago, entitled, "Firefox's AdBlock", where I actually defended it, by arguing that AdBlock allows the user to define what ads to block, whereas other adblocker software makes the decision for everyone. This way, someone can block only the most intrusive ads, and not all ads.

I publish my own motorcycle blog too, "Biker News Online", which is part of the reason why I took so much interest in this. I posted a few comments on Mike's blog saying that I don't think this has to do with Firefox Adblock. I reasoned that my own website statistics show that only 18% of the visitors to my motorcycle blog are using Firefox, and certainly a much small percentage using Adblock.

Mike responded back that his demographics show a larger 30% using Firefox.

I guess I was astounded by the 30% figure.

First of all, he's physically located in France, but publishes everything in English. I have to believe that his audience is still predominantly from the USA. Mine is also, at 64%.

Second, his content is focused at all genres of motorcycle riding, be it dirt bikes, sport bikes, touring bikes, dual sports, sport touring, cruisers, Harleys, etc. My audience, however, is focused solely on cruisers and Harleys.

So I wonder, is that the reason why 30% of his users are using Firefox, compared to my 18%?

I took a look at the statistics for some of my other websites to see what the Firefox usage was. These are all of my higher-trafficked sites...

• Biker News Online - motorcycles, biker life - (18% Firefox usage)


• Junk Food Blog - commercialism, entertainment - (23% Firefox usage)


• Strange New Products - gadgets, entertainment - (20% Firefox usage)


• DoggieNews - pet owners, animal welfare - (17% Firefox usage)


• State Archives - genealogy, history, seniors - (7% Firefox usage)


• Interment.net - genealogy, cemeteries, seniors - (11% Firefox usage)

Of all the websites I publish, both Junk Food Blog, Strange New Products, and Interment.net, receive the higher percentage of worldwide audience as opposed to USA audience. However, the audience on Interment.net is predominantly senior, with 50% of the audience being over 55 years old. Junk Food Blog and Strange New Products serve a young audience.

As far as my motorcycle blog "Biker News Online" compared to Mike's motorcycle blog "Bikes in the Fast Lane", his audience is generally younger, because it includes motorcycles that young people like to ride, sport bikes. My blog is read by an older audience, because that's who usually ride cruisers and Harleys. Also, these bikes are largely found in the USA. Most of the world rides small, standard motorcycles.

Bottom Line with Firefox Adblock

If you want to find an audience that largely avoids using Firefox as a web browser, stick to niches that are predominantly senior in age, and where the audience has very little penetration outside of the USA.

European audiences tend to thrive on Firefox, and probably anything else that isn't Microsoft.