Use adblock plus. works for me,

I know HJ needs ads to support the site, but I also can't stand large intrusive adverts. They are also a security risk as several ad providers have been hacked in order to distribute malware via legitimate sites. I use uBlock Origin add-on in my browser and never see any ads here.

I find that, after using Adblock Plus (only) for some time, it was getting quite processor hungry and was slowing down my PC (admitedly it is 6 years old now, but it was [back then] a high spec PC) when browsing ad-intensive websites (the Daily Telegraph is FAR worse in my view), particularly with Flash-type or video ads (whether full screen or not).

Anyhoo, I've now changed my Firefox (latest 64 bit version on Win 7 64-bit) add-ons to:

• uBlock Origin (a much 'liter' ad blocker than Adblock plus but still very effective on almost all ads);
• Adguard AdBlocker, which someone on another forum suggested to me as a way of avoid almost all pop-ups and especially pop-unders that Firefox generally and uBlock etc don't block;
• Ghostery - not sure what it does exactly other than restrict tracking, but it always gets great user reviews given today's predilication for many website to have very intrusive ads that can track your browsing.

In combination, they seem to work very well on my PC, less so on my tablet, but then it is significantly less powerful (Galaxy Tab 3, so not exactly new or really powerful either), but using it on the tablet made a huge improvement, enough that it went from (this website and the DT) being completely unusable to a bit slow, but usable.

Its a real shame that I've had to install these programs, as I have no problem with relatively unobtrusive banner ads (though not the 'background'/whole page ones which do use significant amounts of system resources) as long as they don't severely restrict reading of the content we are actually here for. I agree that the video/Flash type ads a real pain in the backside and, rather than attract me to buy some product, they put me off by reducing the experience of using said webside (whatever they are).

PS. Firefox are in the process of making major changes to how their software works, and some ad-ons (not including those I listed above, thankfully) may not work very soon. Many add-on developers do not like the changes, especially as Firefox's owners are apparently also trialling (in Germany) built-in software that tracks users and gives that info to ad firms or something similar, which users cannot opt out from.

Some developers are, as such, refusing to update their add-ons, which, if its widespread, could bring down Firefox very quickly. A shame if it did, as I find the large amount of (free) add-ons really useful, more so than all the other browsers, and Firefox is still reasonably quick.

Edited by Engineer Andy on 05/11/2017 at 14:01

Like the rest of us I appreciate that HJ needs advertising to fund the site so I don't criticise him for having it. However I do find advertising on the internet in general to be a pest and potentially a hazard given the adverts have been found to serve up malware on occasion. My answer to it is to tweak the hosts file to reject all requests to go to advert sites. It directs all those requests to 0.0.0.0 so they never get through. This is how it is done:

winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

I also run a second browser which has no adblocking, ghostery etc. This is used only for sites which won't run if too much is blocked. Ebay is one that I need clean browser for. I also use the second browser for Iview catch up TV.