People that know me know that I love Firefox, and really don’t like Internet Explorer and Safari – I’m OK with Google Chrome. One reason I love Firefox is that I can install Add-ons to make MY Firefox do exactly what I want it to do. Today, I’m going to show you how to block advertisements on websites using AdBlockPlus.
AdBlock Plus:
First, obviously, you need to be running Firefox [Download Firefox]. Once installed, browse on over to https://addons.mozilla.org/ and search for Adblock Plus and install it (Allow install when prompted). Restart Firefox. When Firefox loads, you will be prompted to subscribe to a filter. Select EasyList (USA), and click Subscribe. For a complete list of AdBlock Lists, you can visit their website.
[ For help installing Addons in Firefox ]
Now that AdBlock Plus is installed, you will see a new icon in the task bar of Firefox.
You can toggle whether or not you want ads blocked – depending on what domain you are on. Obviously, you don’t want to block the ads on EverydayNerd.com – I do this for free, so please support the website. 
Click the small down arrow to the right of the ABP icon, and you will have the option to disable ABP for the whole domain, or just on that single page you are on. When the icon is Red, it is blocking ads on the page you are currently on. If it is green, it is not blocking ads.
Note1: that blocking ads may break some websites, so you may have to disable ABP on certain websites.
Note2: This does not block all ads, but does a pretty good job at it. If you run across ads that it isn’t blocking, and want to block them too, you can install another extension from ABP that allows you to select an element of the page you wish to block:
Adblock Plus Element Hiding Helper:
** Warning ** if you are not careful using this, you can block content that you don’t want to. It is un-doable, but use with caution.
Go to https://addons.mozilla.org/ and search for Element Hiding Helper. Install the add-on, accepting the install warning if prompted, and restart Firefox. Now navigate to a page that you wish to block an element that the normal AdBlock Plus is not catching, and click the down arrow next to ABP. You will see a new menu option – Select Element to Hide (Ctrl+Shift+K).
Lets look at a page, and block the “This Week’s Deals” section of the page.
Twirl down ABP, and click on Select element to hide.
You will see a help menu, showing keyboard shortcuts that you will need to block elements. You will notice as you move your mouse around that each element is outlined by a red border. Hover over the section that you want to block, and see if the red border is large enough to block the whole section If not, press W on your keyboard, until it is large enough to block the whole element. Once you have it all highlighted, press the S key to select the element.
You can now edit the new “rule” you are making. Note the Preview check box. USE THE PREVIEW! Toggle it off and on, so to make sure you are not blocking content on the page that you want to keep. When you are happy, click Add filter rule. Voila, you just blocked an ad!
** If you ever have to switch computers, or you want to copy all your custom AdBlock Plus Filters to another machine, you have to export the filter, and import it to the new computer.
Open the Adblock Plus Preference, and choose either Import or Export. I’m sure you don’t want to have to re-do all those custom filters again do ya?
Advanced Ad-Blocking – Namely Facebook
Facebook seems to change their page layout pretty often, so sometimes ABP doesn’t always catch all the ads. Have no fear, there is always an extension for that.
GreaseMonkey is a great Add-on for Firefox. It allows you to customize the web the way YOU want to see it. There are hundreds of thousands of scripts out there that you can install to make your browsing experience better. We want to block Ads in Facebook, so first, we need to install the Greasemonkey Add-on.
Restart Firefox, browse to http://userscripts.org/. Once there, search for Facebook Purity, and click the Install link.
You will be prompted to accept the install. Now, head on over to Facebook, and enjoy a cleaner look. If you want to disable, or uninstall a Greasemonkey script, just right click on the monkey head icon in the bottom right of Firefox, and go to Manage Scripts, or toggle Enabled to disable/enable.
Note again, that all of these methods are full proof, so don’t be surprised if you do see an ad or two. But, keep adding selective filters with the Select Element to Hide tool, and you will build up a very nice ad-free web experience.
Links:
[ Download Firefox ]
[ Userscript.org ]
Microsoft DPM
MicrosoftExchange
Nerd with a .45
PowerShell
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