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What is a good free internet web blocker?

What do you use to block ads when you browse the internet?

  • What do you use to block ads when you browse the internet? Does it ever erroneously block sites? Does it cost much, does it have special features? I'm looking for something to scrub the web clean - any/all platforms - without blocking innocent third parties. I say any platform since many of my friends are asking me for advice on this, and probably a few in here are interested if you have found the perfect blocker. Personally I'm a panther gal, but lets spread the joy.

  • Answer:

    http://www.everythingisnt.com/hosts.html I spend a lot of time keeping it clean or non-adservers and as small as possible. It works for me and somewhere in the order of magniture of 10s of thousands of other people use it. I'd like to switch to adblock, but it really doesnt stop me from loading ads, so the ad people still get to waste my bandwidth, see my user_agent string telling them what kind of computer/browser I have, and track me with third-party cookies. Also, the hosts file method is a godsend when using a dialup.

dabitch at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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Admuncher is far and away the best. Tiny, lightweight, insanely feature-rich, minutely configurable while easy to use, but not free. Give the trial a try, and you'll never go back. I haven't seen more than one or two ads a month in a couple of years.

stavrosthewonderchicken

erebora

skallas's hosts file is the One True Hosts File.

five fresh fish

A second cheer for skallas' host file!

clockwork

"Adblock is better than using a hosts file" This is not an either/or decision. Use both.

krisjohn

Adblock is better than using a hosts file, for the simple reason that Adblock removes the image/flash element entirely, compressing space and making the page more compact and appealing. Usually it's like there was never an ad there at all.

neckro23

Dude! That's your hosts file? That's the one I use on all my PCs. You rock.

krisjohn

I'm a big fan of the Google toolbar on IE. The WinXP Service Pack2 popup blocker works well, except on MSN and MSNBC. There are some pages, like online galleries, where popups are good, so on IE, it's useful to remember how to enable popups temporarily. Not only does Firefox block popups, but tabbed browsing is way better, esp. on MeFi, where I like to open new tabs for links. Firefox, and other non-IE browsers, are also significantly more secure.

theora55

It's by no means perfect, but I'm using a custom CSS file that sets to "display: none !important" a lot of ad hosts. The nice thing is that it's free, and works with all the browsers that I actually use.

adamrice

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