blocking banner ads?

[Cuc Tu]

I visit a site where another user complains of banner ads, a member responds:

"there are no ads. you see the ads because you're allowing your machine to connect to them. if you don't want to see them then simply disallow the connections. you do know how to do that, right?"

Is this possible from a user like myself?

[PrntRhd]

Several ways.

Firefox has popup ad blocking already.

Firefox with AdBlock Plus extension really wipes a lot of the objectionable ones.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865

I also can control what is allowed by using Firefox w the NoScripts extension.

[Cuc Tu]

Is this just for pop-ups, or banner ads on the actual page. For example, I see a pair . com advert and google ads on this site at the top of the page.

[PrntRhd]

Which one are you referring to?

[Cuc Tu]

The blue ad at the very top of the page right here.

World class web hosting...nice flashy banner...with the supporting "Ads by Google" just below it.

[PrntRhd]

I know the Pair.com ad and Google ad on the page, I meant did you try one of the suggested extensions and viewing the site with them active?

[Cuc Tu]

I'm not using FF. Would the extension block the above banners?

[PrntRhd]

Yes,
There is a version from the AdBlock Plus extension author that also works in IE.
All you would see are empty boxes on the page.

With the NoScript extension and Firefox I do see the ads but it eliminates the flashing ones, pop-ups, pop-unders, and the redirects on a website by website basis.

[Cuc Tu]

Thanks...I thought they were part of the page(s).

[PrntRhd]

Blocking all ads is controversial, the website owners want the ad revenue from the advertisers, but some users do not want to be bombarded with ads.
IXL has allowed some reasonable ads, IMHO.

[Paul Komski]

I agree that we are not inundated with ads here, nor with overdone avatars and signature images.

Not all banner ads are "equal" and what can be blocked on a webpage and how depends how the image is drawn in the first place. Thus script blocking should block the Google Ads here because they are drawn by javascript but the Pair banner would require images to be blocked because all it is an animated gif file. Gaps will be left because they sit inside nested table elements. More "in your face" banners might be drawn by flash animation and include mulimedia elements as well. The other approach that can be used is use a proxy server to redraw everything on a page

[Jiggy]

Give this a try Mike's Ad Blocking Hosts file (http://www.everythingisnt.com/hosts.html).