How To Get Rid Of Those Annoying Ad Banners?

[TVLover]

It seems like, for certain web pages, most of the time my browser spends for downloading the page is used for accessing and downloading those ad banners that I do not wish to see, and downloading the useful data actually takes less time.

Subsequently, I have tried to look for solutions in order to get rid of those banners, and I have tested some add-on software available on the Net such as WebWasher and AdSupervisor. However, none of them seems to work well for me.

It is not so much the pop-up pages that I am trying to get rid of (I think that the 2 browsers that I use - IE and Opera - handle this quite well) but really the ad banners, ad rows and ad columns which are on the web pages I wish to access.

Has anyone found an effective way to eliminate them?

[Nickerelastic]

I use a Firefox extension 'Adblock' to remove all ad's.

[spog]

I use a Firefox extension 'Adblock' to remove all ad's.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Like 'ee said: Firefox, Firefox, rah, rah, rah!

Does everything you could want, lus wakes you up with tea and toast in the morning

(you can simply right-click on a banner and tell firefox to ignore images from that particular site)

[Nickerelastic]

Sadly without The Banner advertising this site would not exist. I choose not to see advertising banners on any site I visit.

I do however realise that busy sites such as this do rely on advertising.

[TVLover]

Thank you for your answers, Nickerelastic and spog. So, it looks like Firefox has a built-in ad remover feature. I think I should take a look at this browser...

[Crushdepth]

I have become 'ad blind', I don't even notice them anymore (now that I don't have to deal with pop ups).

[TVLover]

I have become 'ad blind', I don't even notice them anymore (now that I don't have to deal with pop ups).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I get your point, and I would tend to the ignore the ads too. But the issue is the time it takes to access and display those ads. It seems to me that, sometimes, more than 50% of the total time and, subsequently, bandwidth required to display a web page is just for the ads. As I see bandwidth as a precious resource, I would like to save it as much as I can. And, of course, surf the web faster!

[lomatopo]

Ad Muncher works for me.

[johng]

I use a simple plain text file called a host file..

With this you can block any site you want

The hard work of finding all those adservers and sites that try to install malware/spyware on to your computer ..has allready been done,well I should say its an ongoing process as things change frequently.

Using this method, there is no need to install any new software.

( which in its self could be spyware )

Only bad point is that you need to manualy update every now and again.

More information here: http://www.hosts-file.net

[udon]

Zone Alarm Pro, NOT the Suite.

Free download and try it for 30 days.

[cdnvic]

The firefox plugin that filters ads is NOT spyware. It can also target specific ads with a mouseclick as many sites are getting wise to the hostfile trick and putting images you need in the same folders as the ad images so that the site becomes in operable if the ad folders are blocked. You can maybe handle the major ad companies, but site specific ones are not feasable unless you do an enormous amount of editing.

Don't forget that a click now and then on an ad that interests you can keep a site up and running. It certainly beats paying for access.

cv

[TVLover]

Ad Muncher works for me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just downloaded and installed it, and it seems to work immediately. Much better than any other s/w I've tried before. Using Opera, the 1st page of the Bangkok Post gets displayed in 4 seconds with no ads, versus 9 seconds when Ad-Muncher is disabled (and with the ads!). Of course, it needs more testing, but this seems to be a great piece of software.

Many thanks for this great posting, lomatopo!

[clokwise]

Has anyone found an effective way to eliminate them?

As others have said the way to go is FireFox with the AdBlock extension. My personal opinion is anyone who STILL uses IE as their browser deserves all the viruses and spyware and ads and crap that is headed their way. There's just no excuse not to use another browser anymore.

Note that Firefox and Adblock alone actually don't do a heck of a lot. You will need to also install a filterset to tell AdBlock which ads to block. This one is probably the most popular. While you're at it, use AdBlock+ instead, it has whitelists and an improved UI.

Someone here pointed out that banner ads help support this site, and I am sympathetic to a point - I founded one of the first ad networks in Asia and used to preach the gospel of the banner. But times have changed and banner ads are now nothing but an annoyance for users, a relatively expensive and risky buy for advertisers, and never provide anything but a poor return for small and medium sized publishers. Publishers these days should be looking at something such as affiliate networks or even Google AdSense, which offer better returns, are less likely to be blocked, and provides advertising which is better targeted toward their audience.

[cdnvic]

I agree with you on the adsense ads. Unlike the original big companies like doubleclick, valueclick, and advertising.com (long since firewalled), the google advertising I actually find useful once in a while.

They're also way easier to deal with than Overture (Yahoo/AV)

cv

[tripperj]

It seems like, for certain web pages, most of the time my browser spends for downloading the page is used for accessing and downloading those ad banners that I do not wish to see, and downloading the useful data actually takes less time.

Subsequently, I have tried to look for solutions in order to get rid of those banners, and I have tested some add-on software available on the Net such as WebWasher and AdSupervisor. However, none of them seems to work well for me.

It is not so much the pop-up pages that I am trying to get rid of (I think that the 2 browsers that I use - IE and Opera - handle this quite well) but really the ad banners, ad rows and ad columns which are on the web pages I wish to access.

Has anyone found an effective way to eliminate them?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I use spybot search and destroy, adawear, and microsoft Antispyware beta1, they keep my comp clean as a whistle. Also spybot has many other features. All can be downloaded for free and updated regularly you should have very few if any prob's. Also spyblaster is good for blocking active x file's that can make ur comp go to places and do thing's ya don't want it too.

Or "Hijackthis" is another cool little exe that lets ya keep ur comp' free from hijakers.

[lomatopo]

Ad Muncher works for me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just downloaded and installed it, and it seems to work immediately. Much better than any other s/w I've tried before. Using Opera, the 1st page of the Bangkok Post gets displayed in 4 seconds with no ads, versus 9 seconds when Ad-Muncher is disabled (and with the ads!). Of course, it needs more testing, but this seems to be a great piece of software.

Many thanks for this great posting, lomatopo!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No problem, someone recommended it to me and I've been using it for more than one year. I haven't seen an ad in all that time, although I did have an occasion to turn it off today and overwhelmed by the negative experience of this site/forum, and others. I can't imagine how people deal with all that distraction, but like everything with a long exposure, maybe you just get used to it?

Take a look at the log, the amount of ads blocked are staggering.

[yeti]

I dumped FireFox few weeks ago for Maxthon, and I found that the integrated ad blocker system is really more effective than the one from FireFox...

[TVLover]

I use a simple  plain text file called a host file..

With this you can block any site you want 

The hard work of finding all those adservers and sites that try to install malware/spyware on to your computer ..has allready been done,well I should say its an ongoing process as things change frequently.

Using this method, there is no need to install any new software.

( which in its self could be spyware )

Only bad point is that you need to manualy update every now and again.

More information here:  http://www.hosts-file.net

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for the input, johng. I am not sure to understand what these host files are and how they work, but I 'll look into it.

[terdsak_12]

It certainly works this Ad muncher, and I'm a Forum Sponsor. Thanks for the link.

[TVLover]

Thanks for your contribution too, cdnvic and clokwise!

It is my intention to try Firefox and now that you indicate that it has an ad-blocking feature, I have an even more compelling reason to do so.

As I mentioned, I use Opera (and, occasionally, IE when a web site does not display well with Opera) and it does not have any ad banner blocking function (only a pop-up window blocker, or am I missing something?)

[TVLover]

Zone Alarm Pro, NOT the Suite.

Free download and try it for 30 days. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Really? I was not aware that ZA Pro had an ad banner remover feature. I use ZA (not Pro, the free version), and it does not seem to have such a feature. Thank you for mentioning it!

[TVLover]

I use spybot search and destroy, adawear, and microsoft Antispyware beta1, they keep my comp clean as a whistle. Also spybot has many other features. All can be downloaded for free and updated regularly you should have very few if any prob's. Also spyblaster is good for blocking active x file's that can make ur comp go to places and do thing's ya don't want it too.

Or "Hijackthis" is another cool little exe that lets ya keep ur comp' free from hijakers.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here, I am a little puzzled. I thought that the purpose of those software was to prevent the - malicious or undeliberate (from the user's view point) - installation of spyware/adware/malware programs on your PC, not the removal of ad banners when browsing the Net. Btw, I use MS Antispyware Beta, and it certainly does not help in suppressing ad banners.

[johng]

Thanks for the input, johng. I am not sure to understand what these host files are and how they work, but I 'll look into it.

TVLover :

Found this site today..it explains the host file concept a bit better than the first site I recomended.

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

[Highwayman]

Ad Muncher, very nice. I think it's going to be a keeper.

I used to use Ad-Block with Firefox but gave up on it as it was more trouble than it was worth. The great thing about Ad Muncher is that it works across different brosers e.g. Firefox, IE and Opera. I have a custom list in my Hosts file to block some really annoying adverts but it looks like l can get rid of those entries now.

[terdsak_12]

Looks like I'll have to stop advertising on this site!!!!

[cdnvic]

Ok, just to play devil's advocate here,

It takes a couple seconds to click a link, if everyone did this once a day you could get by on a single small ad.

When people don't at least give the sponsors a look then webmasters have to add more ads and of a greater diversity to try an elicit a response. This leads to a net increase in the amount of bandwidth needed by both the website and its users as one is hosting more images and links, and the other has to load them all into their browser. This isn't any good for either the visitor, or the host.

How much time do you spend on free forums and other websites? An hour or two a day? Just imagine if you could go to a movie for free if you just took a minute to read a small advertising flyer because the sponsor paid for your seat in the theatre. Not a bad deal. That's essentially what you get offered on the web. Nobody's demanding a cover charge, they're just asking you to take a look at who's paying the bills so that you can enjoy the content.

I've worked in advertising before, in both a creative and a sales capacity and can tell you that the industry is essentialy vile and evil. However like dung beetles, advertising does a job which is needed.

This is a site which aside from being a business, we admit that, does a great deal of service in making Thailand not quite so foreign and intimidating for all of us who live here, visit here, or something in between.

So regardless of whether or not you're running ad blocking software, if you benifit from this forum, do me a small favour;

If you need a car, call Terdsak and at least check his prices.

If you need a lawyer or want to buy a business, see what Sunbelt Asia can do for you.

Need some classifieds in English? Baht&Sold

Another group to help you set up business? Indo-Siam

Need to send flowers? Virgin Florist is cheaper than FTD.

And if you don't need them, maybe PM them and thank them for supporting the forum which brings us all together, regardless of whether or not you can see their banners.

cv

[yeti]

Hi cv,

This could be an endless debate.

Working in marketing, I have a slightly different opinion.

We are all happy to be able to use thaivisa for free, and we all understand that a website like TV needs a lot of money to run.

That's why sponsors are important to this site, and I'm using advices of one of them to create my company. And that's also why it's important to carefully choose those sponsors, as if someone is disapointed with one of them it will hurt them all (not my case, don't worry).

My problem on this site, and on most sites, is with Google ads. Clicking on one of them from time to time (as you suggest) to support a site will lead to an increasing of their numbers, as they will appear as a good source of money for the webmaster. And you'll make someone losing money in order to support someone else (if you click on a link you're not really interested in, the guy who pays for it is losing money).

You're saying that ad blockers are forcing websites to insert even more ads in order to make money from less people (the ones who don't use ad blockers).

I'm saying it's the other way around: too many ads are the reason why people are using ad blockers. If most websites had a reasonable number of ads, people wouldn't use ad blockers (and if my aunt had balls, she would be my uncle, that's going in circle, I know ).

My conclusion: you want people to use forum sponsors, then give your sponsors a better visibility, by removing those google ads. The less ads there are, the more efficient they are.

Unless of course google ads are a significant money supplier, but, for me, having so many of them on a webpage is a nuisance which leads to the use of ad blockers...

Yeti

Ps: sorry to the original poster for this post hijack.

Edited September 14, 2005 by yeti

[cdnvic]

And you'll make someone losing money in order to support someone else (if you click on a link you're not really interested in, the guy who pays for it is losing money).

Not at all. Don't click on them unless there's something that you find interesting. I was just suggesting that they don't ignore them altogether and then go looking in the Post for a similar service thats advertised here.

You're saying that ad blockers are forcing websites to insert even more ads in order to make money from less people

I was talking about when people completely ignore ads they see, rather than check them out. The ad blockers add a new problem. Some sites though as I mentioned before are getting smart and putting ads in folders that mix them with needed images. The days of sites having urls like "ads.website.com" are numbered as they know any blocker will block that.

[yeti]

I was talking about when people completely ignore ads they see, rather than check them out.

People ignore ads when there are too many of them (not an attack on thaivisa, more of a general remark coming from my (small) experience in marketing).

Edited September 14, 2005 by yeti

[tripperj]

I use spybot search and destroy, adawear, and microsoft Antispyware beta1, they keep my comp clean as a whistle. Also spybot has many other features. All can be downloaded for free and updated regularly you should have very few if any prob's. Also spyblaster is good for blocking active x file's that can make ur comp go to places and do thing's ya don't want it too.

Or "Hijackthis" is another cool little exe that lets ya keep ur comp' free from hijakers.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here, I am a little puzzled. I thought that the purpose of those software was to prevent the - malicious or undeliberate (from the user's view point) - installation of spyware/adware/malware programs on your PC, not the removal of ad banners when browsing the Net. Btw, I use MS Antispyware Beta, and it certainly does not help in suppressing ad banners.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

sorry my mistake, they don't. I miss understood ur post. But they are good for keeping alll those other little nasties at bay, as said by other add muncher is good for removing banner ect..