Crush Internet Advertising

I would pay money for a browser plugin that scans web-page source with a list of domains to ignore. For example, you could set it to ignore anything from the domain 'doubleclick' and whenever the browser hit a reference asking for data from doubleclick, the plugin would tell it not to bother loading it. -- AndyPierce

Technology Solutions:

TheMozillaProject has policy hooks to accomplish exactly what you are talking about. When you discover an ads-only domain, just right-click on the image and do pick the link that says, "Block Images From This Site".
An ad-filtering proxy is another option, though you'll have to funnel all your requests through it. (E.g., JunkBuster)
A simple, manually-intensive solution is to edit your hosts file (/etc/hosts, C:\windows\hosts, or C:\winnt\lmhosts[.sam]) to "ignore" the offending hosts by redirecting them to a spurious address. See http://www.21stcentury.net/~flan/Hosts for a fairly comprehensive list of ad servers. [Example 'hosts' line?] BrokenLink
AdSubtract? software also does this. http://www.adsubtract.com
There're still a couple of places online where you can pick up at-guard. http://www.firewall-net.com/en/atguard/install.php is one. http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Realm/3710/ has a little doco. Unfortunately this product is hard to obtain because Symantec bought all the rights and swallowed the thing into their larger grosser toolset, but if you're on almost any variety of MicrosoftWindows (except XP I think) it works well for ad-blocking, cookie-killing, and some but not all anonymizing. As a personal firewall it's a little behind the times, but if you supplement it with, say, ZoneAlarm?, you may start to feel like you've got just a little control of what goes in and out of your 'puter. And for all your porn needs, yes, it will happily block JavaScript too, either completely or just the popup windows. I personally paid for at-guard and recommend that you find a way to do likewise if you find a way to use it...
AvantBrowser? includes this option out of the box, opera also includes this features with pre-filled list available and plugins such adblocker and noscript are available for mozilla browsers, microsoft browser deserves to be plagued by ads.

''I've recently installed JunkBuster and love it. Pages load SOOO much faster without all those ads. To use it you need Squid which is part of most Linux distros.''

No, you DON'T need squid to use JunkBuster. BTW, JunkBuster from Stephen Waldherr (http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net) is better than plain JunkBuster.

Ha! This page is brought to you by JunkBuster.

My network sits behind an inexpensive hardware firewall by SonicWall?. Beyond the main purpose of security, I can configure it to block access to specific IP addresses and domains like DoubleClick.

I'd also like a one-click browser configuration to allow a given domain to open new windows in a script that runs at page load time. Until I click this box, no domain is allowed to open new windows in a page load script. This would completely eliminate most pop-up and pop-under ads without having to maintain a blacklist.

Actually, Netscape developed something like this: An icon on the taskbar that you could disable/enable JavaScript with a single click. During the time it was being developed, it quickly got the nickname, "The Porn Button." Because of this, it got a reputation bad enough that it was never publicly released. At least that's how the legend goes.

OperaBrowser has a feature to turn off popup-windows.

The latest version of (0.9.4) MozillaBrowser has a slightly more sophisticated preferences setting. You can disable popups that are triggered by page load and unload events, but still allow user-initiated popup windows. Great for killing ad windows but still allowing functionality on sites with useful popups.

Mozilla's approach is a perfect technical solution, and it's the main reason I'm considering a switch to Mozilla from MSIE.

Discussion of ad avoidance (ethics, economics, etc.)

To be fair, though, such a system would need to be able to let the site that you're viewing know that you've disabled the ads (so that they could then turn around and say "Okay, well you can't see me either, then"). Otherwise, you're viewing the site for free, as opposed to the "payment" you make by at least being exposed to ads. Compare it to free-to-air TV; nobody says you have to watch the commercials, you just have to put up with them interrupting your favourite shows.

I don't think I have any responsibility to notify broadcasters or program producers that I'm using time-shifting technology to skip the ads they sent me for free, in order to view the content they sent me for free. Same thing applies to web sites: if I never explicitly agreed to either watch their ads or notify them that I'm not watching their ads, then I have no obligation to do either thing. Same thing also applies to promotional seminars: I don't have a responsibility to buttonhole the speaker and let them know I'm not currently in their market, nor do they have a right to buttonhole me and interrogate me about my upcoming purchase plans. If I really like the site or speaker, I may then look for a way to sponsor it or support their sponsors, or swap cards and all that; but the switch from being in the audience to becoming a prospective customer is MINE to make.

Agree. To continue the TV analogy, the airwaves are public domain. If I choose to videotape the free programs in order to fast-forward over the free ads, that's ok. Don't get me started on why cable de-scramblers are illegal though. -- AndyPierce

<shrug> Suit yourself. The only thing you're really doing is hastening the day when the ad-supported sites you frequent are no longer viable as a free-for-view service. As an ethical issue, suppressing banner or inline ads is really a mild form of theft. If you don't want the ads, the right thing to do is not to use the service. (Suppressing popup ads and site-trappers, OTH, is merely trying to save your sanity). If you go back to a ad-supported based site, that's certainly an agreement to put up with the ads. -- rw.

What many of us are really doing is hastening the day when commercial entities stop trying to make the Web a TV set, so we can go back to how it was when it all started. I'll take a hand-written, volunteered, carefully crafted page over all the glitzy bumpf any day. Witness this wiki. --AlainPicard, feeling particularly ornery today.

I'm generally willing to view material that originates from the site I'm viewing. (I ignore it, but I let it appear.) What I don't want to allow on my computer are ads or other material from third party sites. Allowing that provides a trivially exploitable avenue for marketing scum like the DoubleClick people to perform cross-site tracking of my viewing habits.

And of course, realizing that images aren't sent with the page, only a reference to them, from which the browser can make another request for the actual images.

Just don't use the service

You have no contract with the content providers; they offer their content for free, so there's no legal obligation to do anything for them in exchange. Therefore being selective in which of their links you follow isn't theft; it's an expression of aesthetics.

Nobody says you have to follow the links. However, the facts of the matter are these:

Putting up a web site does cost a bit of money. Putting up a high-quality web-site, updated regularly, with interesting information costs a lot of money.
Many sites want to recoup that money somehow.
The current method of choice is internet advertising. The sooner this is discredited, the sooner other methods (such as subscription or micropayments) will take hold.
Internet advertising means that the site you are trying to reach is free-to-view. Most other methods won't be.

Conclusion: if you want free-to-view web-sites, don't do things that will discourage internet advertising. -- rw.

There is no point in advertising unless people actually read the ads and buy the stuff advertised. If you don't read the ads, even if you let them come up on the screen, it's not going to work. Advertisers are in the process of figuring this out. Personally, I'll take the micropayments if it comes to that. It is disingenuous to call these "free-to-view" sites whether you pay monetarily or in your valuable time and bandwidth wasted on useless ads. -- AndyPierce

Metaphor: blocking internet banner ads is like watching public television but not pledging any money. This has a slight EthicsSmell?, but is not illegal.

Countermetaphor: blocking internet ads is like reading a magazine and turning quickly over the pages which contain adverts.

Metametaphor: metaphor is the blunt rusty saw of electronic debate -- DanBarlow

Question: what about people who never purchase online? If they block ads, aren't they actually saving money for companies that advertise online, because they reduce unnecessary load on the company's servers? Are these folks' actions more consistent[1] than those who neither purchase nor block ads?

[1] While keeping in mind that the Internet is at its best as a GiftEconomy. That's another kettle of worms, though. (It's not really another kettle though; the whole idea of banner ads on "free" Web sites is just a kludge. The basic protocols of the Internet (IP, UDP, TCP) have "gift economy" (or "cooperative economy") hardwired into them! There's no straightforward way to charge for the content of an HTTP packet, and it's nearly impossible to prevent its being copied and passed around at no extra charge. If you want AOL or Compuserve, where the protocols are designed to be metered and billable, and "premium content" is charged automatically, hey, you know where to find them. But observe millions of users voting with their feet for the GiftEconomy. Even AOL subscribers typically use it just as an easy way to connect to the open Internet, not as a "content" service in itself. It's not the Internet's fault that it's hard to make money selling "content" on the Internet! ThatsNotaBugItsaFeature.)

An expectation of revenue on your part does not constitute an obligation on my part. -- MarkSchumann