Slashdot Mirror

You should try Privoxy to block popups, ads and other annoyances... it is based on the old Junkbuster Proxy code but supports HTTP/1.1 and much more advanced/fine grained configuration.

Of course, there's the problem of different users on a machine. Is it possible to run a proxy that only a single user has access to?

Bookmarks could easily be managed through a small web app. There's a few things like this, check freshmeat.

What advertisements?

Seriously, why all the big hoo-haa about the removal of popups when it's easy to install some unobtrusive trustworthy software which destroys them without you even noticing?

privoxy

Another sort of ad that I've just started seeing proliferate are the ones that pop up in their own window that doesn't seem to be a browser window, no status bar, no scroll bar, no file/edit/etc, no max/min/close

Privoxy (formerly Internet Junkbuster Proxy Stefan-Waldherr-style) has options to block popup windows or windows without features, as well. It's multiplatform but the Win32 version has even a GUI.

" Anyone else notice that in the last couple of days Microsoft's ad..."

Nope, haven't seen a thing.

Actually, that's a known issue. It's because Junkbuster is getting old and not being very well maintained. It doesn't properly support HTTP/1.1, which Mozilla uses by default.

Please give Privoxy a try instead. It's based on the Junkbuster sources, but much enhanced, supports HTTP/1.1, and works beautifully with Mozilla (all versions). You can grab a fully-loaded blocklist from Stefan Waldherr as always.

You can use a newer version of junkbuster - which support all kinds of stuff like HTTP/1.1

I just installed privoxy which is based on junkbuster. Not only does it filter out ads, but pop-ups as well. nice.

Screw perception, get an ad-blocking proxy to do the hard work for you.

Actually, it's as simple as a regex if you use the new Privoxy for Windows or UNIX.

Go check it out.

But it already comes with a few regexes for killing popups, so all you'd have to "write" is a one-line change in a CFG.

Privoxy (formerly JunkBuster Internet Proxy) does a great job of blocking the slashdot ads, and ads from most other sites on the internet. Even if you have a fast internet connection, time invested to install it is greatly paid back in not waiting and being annoyed by ads!

Privoxy is once again under active development... which is a true success story of the GPL, where a group of interested individuals picked it up after JunkBuster's decided to abandon further development (partly over concern for liability in creating derivitive works of web pages by suppressing the ads)

Try Privoxy, which AFAICT is the same thing that used to be known as ijbswa (which was Stefan Waldherr's version of the original). Works well for me.

Stephen Walderr (probably spelt that wrong :)) created a fork of IJB 2.whatever which used blank GIFs in place of the broken icon or IJB logo. Then his project grew and continued. Everyone reported ads to the communal blocklist, which could be easily synchronized with a cron job. It was the best ever.

Then his site seemed to stop updating, and many people wondered what had happened :-(

But soon, the software was brought back by some great efforts by other people. It has many features I like. However, there are still bugs keeping it from 3.0:
* It stops responding after a few days unless you HUP it.
* It doesn't re-gzip data after it's been deziped and filtered.
* The re_filterfile code sometimes doesn't work (I use it to filter Google's link-wrapping, which I feel is a big of a cheater's way of looking at what I go to)
* Some minor HTTP 1.1 unhappyness.

All in all, a good piece of software -- just not complete (yet).

Any while you're at it. Switch to Privoxy. It's based on Internet Junkbuster but has some advanced features like the ability to replace text within the html code itself. I use this to block flash ads on a per website basis.

Junkbuster does not support HTTP/1.1, so a lot of browsers have problems with it. There is no ad-blocking proxy "supported" by RH as far as I know. The apparent successor to Junkbuster is Privoxy: it's not yet officially supported but it seems to usable now.

Or Privoxy. It's the new name for Junkbuster - or the version that was developed on sourceforge, at least.

I can live with ads popping in slashdot.

I can't. I just use Privoxy (next generation of JunkBuster).
Hey, that really looks like an ad. And since Privoxy filters slashdot ads, will Slashdot filter privoxy's ads ?
Anyway, I started using JunkBuster right after the subscription system was introduced. I later moved to privoxy (which was named ijb-swa at the time), once JunkBuster did not met my standards. Now, I have less ads then before the subscription system. Isn't that interesting ?

But please mod this useful comment down. Slashdot is becomming more a community of Windows users than "nerds." In the past Junkbuster would have been the first comment to appear instead of all the whining and ain't it awful about the bad old advertising. Shit! Route around the damage and stop complaining!

The opposite is what's needed in an ever increasing advertising dominated world.

But to be realistic, if a reasonable standard for advertising ever comes out, it should be supported, but until then the only thing to so is resist the attempted takeover.