Every week I hear about some type of annoying advertisement on YouTube or some other website from friends of mine. I reply with, “What ads?” There is a very simple solution to those ads they despise so much. It’s a very useful Firefox plugin that I’m surprised so many people haven’t heard of. AdBlock Plus is a fairly light weight, very simple Firefox plugin that essentially removes most if not all ads on nearly any website you can think of.
Installation
Getting AdBlock Plus is fairly easy. ABP can be downloaded directly from the Mozilla Firefox addons section found here. Click on the big green button labeled “Add to Firefox”. Once installed, restart your browser.
Configuration
You should now see the Adblock plus icon at the top right of your browser. Select the filter for your preference. I use EasyList (USA) which works flawlessly. Click Apply and then Ok and you’re all set!
If you weren’t prompted to select a filter, you can do so by clicking the downwards pointing arrow next to the red ABP icon at the top right of you’re browser. Clicking on that brings up a menu. Select “Preferences” to open the options for ABP. You can also access this window by pressing Ctrl+Shift+E simultaneously. At the top left of the preferences window click on “Filters”. Then click “Add Filters Subscription”. Now you can select the filter of your choice. Again, EasyList (USA) seems to work just fine.
Conclusion
That’s all there is to it! Most, if not all, websites should now be ad-free. If you come across an ad that should be blocked. You can right click it and select the option “Adblock Plus: Block image”. If you come across a website that has videos, flash games, or anything of the sort that would normally play and do not after installing ABP. ABP may be the culprit. It’s simple to disable ABP on any webpage. Click on that downwards pointing arrow and select either “Disable on website here” or “Disable on this page only”. Then refresh the page and you should be good to go.
All in all a simple but very useful add-on that solves a lot of annoyances, something that I am definitely going to push to all of my clients, how about you? Do you use this? Are you going to? (Trust me, it’s worth it!)
