Mags, you are correct in saying ads pay for this site, but they should not be so intrusive as to spoil your enjoyment of the site.
I am not being bothered by any, today, but I certainly have in the past!
if it's that bad then i would use it. surely admin have some responsibility towards it's users.
it's easy to 'whitelist' sites so you could use it when needed.
Mags if you are using Internet explorer you can try switching on activeX filtering...go to the cog wheel in the top right hand corner - click on safety and then click on activeX filtering...it works for me