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dear rob, i've mastered anothe mac technique thanks to you: adblock on firefox works too
Authored by: alec kinnear on Sep 11, '04 02:10:55AM
Here's a new hint submission for you.

For those really annoying sites that run flashing banners all over the place - header and sidbards - there is a solution. Whether you are running Safari or Firefox, you can block the ads with very little trouble. For Safari, there is Pithhelmet and for Firefox, there is Adblock.

Pithhelmet is a piece of cake to use. Once installed, there are two new items in the Safari menu Block Pop Up Windows and Block Filtered Content. Enable and disable them at will. When they are enabled you will see very few ads, they do almost everything automatically.

Adblock is a little trickier to configure. Adblock leaves a small icon in the bottom right hand corner which will allow you to set filters. But its main preferences are accesible via the Tools menu in the Adblock submenu.

To configure a filter for Adblock you must open up the preferences for the pageon which you want to block ads while you are browsing it. You will be presented with a list of very long URLs which represent the ads on the page. You must select the ad you want to block. And here is the tricky part - you have to cut the ad off at the earliest part of the URL possible (without cutting you off from other non-commercial content) and add an asterisk * as a wild card. Otherwise you will block a specific ad and not all ads in that position. Strangely one needs to delete the ads one at a time. It takes a few minutes for each website, but once properly configured, you'd never know that the ads were there.

These are great tools which really save a lot of disraction and frustration. Be careful with Safari - Pithhelmet is not compatible with certain other Safari extension packs.

Why any advertiser would want to try to run banner ads on a site like Macosxhints where half the people would normally be running either Pithhelmet or Adblock before they came and most of the other half are likely to install before they put up with SWF or flashing .gif banners is a mystery.

But if they want to do so its their loss.

Rob, I hope your new commercial policies won't prevent you from publishing hints like the one above.



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dear rob, i've mastered anothe mac technique thanks to you: adblock on firefox works too
Authored by: robg on Sep 11, '04 02:17:59AM
Well, I won't publish that one, because it's a duplicate, and I try not to run duplicate hints. For instance:

AdBlock is mentioned in 2 hints and 14 comments
Pith Helmet is in 5 hints and 44 comments
Privoxy is mentioned in 10 hints and 37 comments

So the subject has been well covered here (and it's already covered in these comments, too). But yes, feel free to use an adblocker. It's your computer, use it as you wish. If that means you can keep reading here, then great.

regards;
-rob.

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fair enough...
Authored by: alec kinnear on Sep 11, '04 02:35:28AM

BREAKING MAC NEWS

Macosxhints.com went commercial last night - mixed reactions to the move with many annoyed by the flashing SWF ads with particular complaints about a Microsoft office banner.

IN OTHER MAC NEWS

Downloads of Pithhelmet and Adlbock spiked last night in an apparent newfound enthusiasm for adblocking software among Mac users.

Advertisers declare their intention of reducing the pittance they already offer popular Mac related siteowners for their annoying banners on the basis that more than half of mac surfers have adblocking software in place.



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Dear rob, congratulations!
Authored by: ibroughton on Sep 11, '04 05:46:21AM

I think that some of the comments here are fair, and others are unjustified. I have enough spare time at the moment to devote 37 hours a week to my web sites if I wanted to, but I don't, they are MY web sites, if you like them then great, if you don't, then don't visit again. I run MY web sites how I want, and Rob has decided HIS site need to generate more revenue and so has placed ads on it. Rob can't (it seems) give this site the full attention it deserves and keep up a full time job which is totally understandable. Ads seem a better way of generating revenue with the amount of clicks this site must get. With the amount of information that is provided here, and over on the forums, I am more than happy to spare a few Kbs download and have the ads. Apart from clicking through the ads, I wish I could help out more as this is a fantastic community. Hands up how many would actually come to this site if it was subscription pay only? Remember it's Rob's site and he seems only to have it's continued success at heart! I say keep up the good work Rob, and I hope that this raises enough revenue for you to keep the site in it's current (new) format.

---
The server is up but the site is down and I don't know which direction you are trying to go



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