AdBlock Plus: Block All Ads on the Internet!

Trashy Advertising Influence

Ad Block Plus
Ad Block Plus

We talk all the time about how bad emotionally driven advertising has had a detrimental influence in our society. Starting at a very young age, billions of dollars are spent to take advantageous of our inner desires for love, significance and our insecurities to sell us things we don’t need. It has changed our outlook about what would truly make us happy and has filled our minds with so much garbage that perhaps many of us feel immune to it. “What is the big deal… right?”.

Well that brings up the question – what can be done?

AdBlock Plus – Block Advertising on Websites

I wanted to highlight a small plugin for Firefox that will BLOCK ADS on all websites. How does that work? Any ads being served from advertising URLs are simply removed from the page.

See this quick 1.5 minute AdBlock Plus video below to see how it works.

Does it work?

Yes! Here are some sample screenshots of what happens when adblock is turned on.

New York Times (Ads in Green) — New York Times (Ads Blocked)

New York Times uses a very similar style as other news sites. Lots of ads are integrated into the page as shown by the highlighted green boxes.  See the image on the right with AdBlock Plus activated. Notice all the ads are now gone. The entire right sidebar is almost cut in half! Pretty nice.

Adblock Plus New York TimesAdblock Plus New York Times - Ads Blocked

ESPN (Ads in Green) — ESPN (Ads Blocked)

I’ve been recently dismayed at the type of ads showing up on ESPN. Early in the year you’ll see tons of “dating/ personal” ads as well as weight loss ads (taking advantage of new year resolutions and those who were lonely over the holiday break). Often these ads show pretty young girls in ways to make the user want to feel insecure and desire to look different and for guys to want to seek out a new relationship. Being a sports site with heavy male demographic, you can imagine the type of ads showing up here. The ads on ESPN have relatively been ok, except for a recent streak of bad ads. But flip on adblock plus and now the ads are gone! The site still intact. Awesome.

Adblock Plus ESPN AdsAdBlock Plus - ESPN - Ads Blocked

Ok, looks great, where do I get it?

Download the Plugin Here: AdBlock Plus Firefox Plugin

Read More: More Advertising Influence Articles

  • Let us know what you think of the plugin!
  • How did it work for you?

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11 Comments

  1. Hi! First-time comment for long-time lurker here. =P

    I love AdBlock Plus! It’s one of the major reasons that makes Firefox my preferred browser. It blocks out most of the image and flash ads. To block some of the more obscure and resilient flash ads, I need to use FlashBlock (also a Firefox add-on). As far as ESPN goes, I think the list of ads needs to keep up with blocking out the TV spots when playing ESPN videos. AdBlock Plus used to be able to block them all! As for now, in order to bypass the 30 second ads lumped into the same playlist as the highlights, I simply embed the videos on another page (which I have to write myself).

    By the way, I love reading this blog and I’ve recommended it to my cousins in SoCal and my friends in China. Thanks as always, Paul!

    1. Adam –

      thanks for your note! love it when a lurker submits their first comment! Not so hard right?! 🙂

      thanks for sharing your experience with adblock plus. hopefully others will find it pretty useful and can later share their own experience.

      thanks for the recommendations to your cousins and friends!

  2. Thanks for the information on AdBlock Plus. What a great tool. Yet web hackers are out building workarounds as fast as these tools seem to get created.

    1. Euripides – no problem! it is quite the nice tool and yes advertisers / hackers will find a way around this too.. I am glad the developers involved are still there working hard as well.

  3. Thank you for sharing the information. It sure does help remove all the clutter from those adds =).

  4. I personally prefer no-ads.pac because it shows you that you are blocking advertisements, which tickles my sense of spite somewhat. You just google it and the first link that shows up should be it. (Finally, a use for that “I’m feeling lucky button”! Unfortunately it doesn’t give you leeway as to what you can and can’t block. You may want to let Google Ads get your information and advertise to you. Many small local buisnesses, including a couple anti-ad add ons like No-script (another fave) get significant funding from them.

    Uh, just read your intro and my blog’s headed in the exact same direction, actually. It’s currently 2:07 and I need some sleep but you can expect to see me back!

    1. Wastelandamerica – hey thanks for your suggestions. Looking forward to see how your blog turns out. I’ll be sure to cruise over there and take a look.

      I think ads that are highly targeted.. and not filled with bad or attention grabbing images are ok. Especially as one who works in the online marketing world, as long as its clean and targeted I agree advertisement serves a good purpose for not just the local businesses but for the economy as a whole. I just really hate going to a site and suddenly being hit with something I didn’t expect…

  5. What a useful tool. It is annoying when inappropriate adds are displayed on a website.

    Unfortunately, ads are what fuel media, especially print media. Newspapers and other forms of print are dying fast and it is ads that are barely holding them up. The problem is people are used to getting things like news online for free, when in fact, it should not be free. Think about it, people have to pay for the newspaper, so why not pay for online news. The NY Times and other papers are slowly trying to ween users off the concept of free news by having certain articles only accessible to paying customers.

    Personally, I think people should just by print, but if I do look at news online, I remember that the ads are what make it possible for me to view the news in the first place.

  6. This is great!!! There are too many inappropriate ads all over the web, what Josh said above is true though, perhaps plug-ins such as these would be a red light for some advertisers that consumers are taking an active stance against inappropriate ads and perhaps to reconsider the kind of image/message they are sending…

  7. Great post shared. 🙂

    I have been searching for a relevant information on how to block all the Ads. Although, some of the Ads are useful as they redirects you to a websites from where you can get info. But majority of them redirects you to bad websites (bad content).

    Recently I found an AdBlocking system reviveads.com which has helped me and many advertisers.

    Thanks for sharing this wonderful post.

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