It always feels bizarre when someone on HN complains about lots of ads on web pages.
I used to browse without one when I worked on an ad-supported site and had to implement and make sure they were working correctly. Gotta assume it's a similar situation here?
I worked at one of the top ad networks for a decade and blocked them the entire time. Would usually just open a separately configured browser window for testing.
I have a "clean" (no addons at all) Chrome profile for web development purposes.
On personal machines, yes. Work involves ads so I keep it off the work machine so I understand what's going on.