Why Ads? (And How to Block Them)

Really just because I think this whole thing of giving stuff away for free is silly. I also have to pay for the hosting for this site, even if it's only about $65 a year.

More to the point, I limit most of my ads to the archive pages, so that regular readers don't get much exposure on the index pages (front page etc.). If you subscribe via the RSS feed, and read things that way, you need never see an ad.

Also, Opera has a fantastic ad blocking system so if you download my urifilter.ini and put it in your profile folder, you're set. Firefox users similarly have ways to get around ads.

Specifically you should be blocking the uri: http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/* - which is normally in most ad-blocking lists. If you want to block infolinks (those annoying double-underlined links), you can block http://resources.infolinks.com/js/infolinks_main.js.

Just so we're clear. The single-underlined links are my links that go to useful content. The double underlined links are the ones by the advertisers. In case you get confused. Oh the slings and arrows of colour consistency.

The best (read: most well-maintained and up-to-date) ad-blocking list (urlfilter.ini) is maintained by "Fanboy." Opera users can look here to find his helpful instructions page. His list can also be used for Firefox apparently.