Saturday, April 12, 2008

Banner Ads Bite The Dust


Pa-leeze. Haven't we all had enough of these things? You know what I'm talking about. They are on hotmail, they are on Facebook, they are on news sites, they are everywhere!!! Banner ads are annoying (punch a monkey?), they are flashy(punch a monkey?), they are in your face and most of all, half of them are sleazy, trying to get you to undress some cartoon szwinky or gawk at some half dressed woman on a dating ad. Wish you never had to look at another one again? You're not alone. Some Programmers are sick of them too and you are a couple clicks away from Banishing Banner Ads I dare say, FOREVER (forever should be said like a middle century englishmen)! Or you could say it like: "For sire, until the end of time...". That's from those old Canadian TV history moments when they found all the fish.

Now that we are starting to see how sweet Firefox is, it's time for last piece of the puzzle. We now know why it's better than Internet Explorer, we know what do about those pages that just won't work in Firefox and finally one of the best reasons to use Firefox in my opinion, Adblock Plus. With a few clicks, this puppy will be annihilating those ridiculous Banner Ads.

How to install it

-First, open firefox and go the add-on site
-Do a search for "Adblock Plus"
-Once you see the add-on, install it using the "Add to firefox" button
-It will install and ask you to restart firefox


-When you restart the above screen will pop up, choose the USA option and hit "Subscribe"
-Done

That's it, no more banner ads. God Bless Wladimir Palant for creating this add-on! Send him a kudos at trev ((at,)) adblockplus [dot] org.

**Important Update**

Facebook seems to have found a way to evade Adblock Plus. No worries, with 2 filters added to Adblock Plus, you will be one step ahead of Facebook's picture ads.

-In Firefox, in the top menu, choose Tools>Adblock Plus...
-Click the Add filter... button on the bottom left of the pop-up window
-Add the filter text facebook.com#*(social_ad) and hit Enter on your keyboard
-Add the filter text facebook.com#*(social_ad_advert) and hit Enter on your keyboard
-Click the OK button

Done, now you have created element hiding filters and if you open facebook, the picture ads should be all gone!

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