Kissing Ads Goodbye with AdBlock

Extensions AdBlock, AdBlock Filterset.G Updater

Category Miscellaneous

Firefox blocks pop-up ads for you right out of the box. But as you're painfully aware, many other forms of online advertising are equally annoying. Enter AdBlock, an extension that can block anything you encounter with a click of the mouse.

Of course, blocking one ad a time could take you awhile. Even a single Web site might cycle through a network of tens of thousands of ads. But unless you block one ad at a time, how does AdBlock tell an ad from a legitimate image? AdBlock lets you block ads using filters that recognize content that comes from the same network as an ad you previously blocked. Rather than blocking one ad a time, AdBlock blocks advertising networks. Because most of the Internet's ads are served up by a small conglomerate of advertising networks, most ads disappear as soon as you've built up a small set of filters.

Now for the good news: Expert users have already scoured the Web for months and constructed a filter list that takes care of most ads you encounter. I recommend the AdBlock Filterset.G Updater extension, which automatically configures AdBlock to use such a list and keeps the list up-to-date as new ad networks are created.

How it works After installing the AdBlock extension, install the AdBlock Filterset.G Updater extension and restart Firefox. You might see two scary-looking notices as soon as you restart. These are harmless; select the check box and click Close in each notice. Now you're ready to start surfing the ad-free Web! Because the purpose here is to reduce distraction caused by ads, AdBlock doesn't replace blocked ads with placeholder images or anything else; it just leaves the space empty. And don't worry about new advertisements: Your ad filter list is automatically updated each week.

REMEMBER 

AdBlock does the best it can to recognize and block advertisements, but some slip through anyway. Whenever you see an ad and sigh, just remember how things were before AdBlock!