If you’re not using Firefox by now, you’re just being silly. As I mentioned nearly a year ago today, it’s a great way to view the Web, and you don’t have to be a nerd to appreciate that.

Firefox supports extensions, and one of my favorites is Adblock, which does exactly what you’d expect (and more — it can also provide certain Rochester residents with hours of entertainment as they probe for sites with banners to zap, much in the manner that a toddler is entertained by socks.)

A few days ago, PC Magazine ran reviews of 15 extensions for Firefox, includind Adblock. In a surprising move, they demonstrated how Adblock works on their own site. As shown in this screenshot, the authors were able to strip out at least 6 banners from the pcmag.com homepage.

Was the move incredibly gutsy or just pragmatic, borne out of fear that any other publisher would sue if used in such a manner? Your guess is as good as mine. In any event, the idea of a publication encouraging its readers to deprive it of revenue, well, it just brings a smile to my face.

Bonus geekery (since I seem to be doing that this week): The review says Adblock is good to prevent “displaying unwanted images.” True, but that’s not all: with the right rules, Adblock also stops Google text ads and those annoying green link hover ads as well.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 4th, 2005 at 11:42 pm and is filed under Geekery.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.