Adblock for Firefox

The power of Adblock, a content-filtering extension for Mozilla/Firefox web browsers, continues to suprise me. So much so that I just have to, well, err, advertise it here again.

Adblock allows the user to specify filters, which remove unwanted content based on the source-address. If this sounds complicated, don't worry: it's not. Just add a few filters. Every time a webpage loads, Adblock will intercept and disable the elements matching your filters.

Here are a few examples of simple filtering:

• Blocking all GIF images: .gif
• Blocking all content served from DoubleClick: doubleclick.net
• Blocking the contents of an ad-directory: http://example.com/ads/

And then we have Contextual Keyword Advertising Technology, which is what actually prompted this post. I was reading an article (yay!) on IGN Music today, and noticed that the words "no doubt" were linked. If you hover your mouse over the words, a sponsored link for Napster.co.uk appears in a dynamic, inline popup, along with a short text blurb and a link to "Download No Doubt Tracks at Napster".

This is the first time I've encountered this advertising technique, which is powered by Vibrant Media's IntelliTXT technology.

IntelliTXT is a pay-for-performance ad unit that delivers the advertiser's message via contextually-relevant keywords within article-based content.

Ah-hah! But with a few clicks here and there in Adblock, I'd added a new filter for '*intellitxt.com*', which basically prevented the JavaScript on their server from performing it's content replacing/link insertion, and the link and inline popup disappeared. Funnily enough, the script didn't seem to take effect in any other browsers I have installed on my notebook: IE 6, Opera 7.5 or Mozilla 1.7! If it works in these browsers on your setup I'd love to know.

If you do install Adblock, which I highly recommend to all Firefox/Mozilla browser users, then you can get started with downloading and importing my filter set: grab it here (.txt). It's mostly based around the sites I visit, but generic enough to benefit most users I think. It should be relatively simply to import this text file into Adblock, in Firefox you simply go to 'Tools > Adblock > Preferences > Adblock Options > Import filters...' and find the downloaded text file.

Hopefully you'll receive as much pleasure from disabling annoying advertising content as much as I do! I find reading articles much easier - no ugly, distracting ad interruptions - and the page will download much faster too since all the ad imagery is completely blocked.