I'm still using MS Internet Explorer 6 (as I don't like the v.7 interface and suspect it to be 'heavier' without adding anything which might be of real interest to me) and - as I said previously - I hardly notice any hampering even without switching off ad and pop-up blocking. ContentLink off or on makes no real difference for me (other than getting rid of those very irritating ContentLink-ads in the forum).
(Further info: WinXP and using Norton for ad and pop-upblocking by the way)