Plus you have to put up with the hiddeous pop-up ads and videos from other articles (despite using ad-blockers) - rather like US newspaper websites use.

I use firefox and adblock plus, does the trick for me.stops 99% of them and just close the odd pop up.

I have used ABP previously - does the job generally, though heavier on system resources than the one I currently use, uBlock origin. The 'popups' aren't ads, but the Mail's own news clips for either that article (which popup and autostart as you pass the static image) or another they refer to further down. A bit annoying, but easily removed (unlike the dodgy ones).

I actually quite like reading some of the "news articles" (miss out the showbiz.and gossip.)

I find it amazing how much gossip pages they run. You wouldn't have thought there was that much gossip about or that people cared that much about it. It still takes me back to the legendary comment on Yes, Prime Minister about who reads what paper.

and the money experts problem page is always entertaining.

You have to wonder why newspaper 'experts' in financial issues call themeslves that, given a real expert wouldn't need or, for that matter, want to write for a newspaper, as keeping all your tips to yourself makes your far more money than telling all and sundry!

Sorry for going off topic a bit.