Content Blocking by CSS in Safari

ahknight writes "There's a nice summary of how to get various kinds of content, in this case ads, blocked from being displayed via a custom stylesheet you add to your browser. This is mainly for Gecko-based browsers and rather old news, but the good news is that it also appears to work in the ... umm ... latest version of Safari."

Comments

Ad blocking Good

[jasoncart]

I'd prefer to see the ads if it keeps the sites I enjoy reading in business.

There's a limit

[metamatic]

I didn't mind ads for a while, but when certain sites (ahem) started putting in those huge mega-ads that take up more than half my browser window, I had to start doing some ad blocking to make the web usable. It was either that or learn to
read
text
that
looks
like
this.

Tragedy of the commons and all that. The people whose ads are being blocked should get angry at the idiots who force us to block ads by making their ads so huge, obnoxious and badly-placed.

Re:Ad blocking Good

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what tip jars and subscriptions are for. It costs, what, NOTHING to set one up via Amazon or PayPal? Ok, percent of profits, but no startup cost.

Better ROI than ads, I'd say, and the site looks cleaner for it.

Stupid layout

[wowbagger]

The problem isn't so much the ads, rather it is the fact that the webmaster(baters) who create these sites set up their layouts assuming your screen is 800x600. Therefor, since the ads are 160 wide, and there are two of them (one on each side), that leaves 800-(2*160) = 400 (that's the sort of math these morons use) for the article.

So, if you are running a 1600x1200 window and larger fonts (anti-aliasing? I need no anti-aliasing!)
you
get
an
article
like
this .

If the morons would either

• use a "width=*" for the article
• Come to an agreement as to what class the actual article text would be

then there wouldn't be a problem - large browser users like me would either get an article that spans the available space (the width option) or could at least override the setting on the article text in our CSS (the common class option).

I've contacted several sites about this. For example, PBS (hosters of the Cringely articles) responded saying "Some people don't like long lines of text, so there!" (OK, then they can resize their windows to get the line length they want.)

Unfortunately, since every site uses a slightly different "width=", and since CSS does not allow you to say "width=[400..800]" or something like that, you have to have a seperate entry for each site, and when the webmaster(bater) changes the layout you have to update your CSS and restart your browser.

I do wish people would realise that HTML is about giving enough info to my browser to render the page, not about being pixel-exact.

Re:Stupid layout

[docwhat]

If the web designer wants to set the width, then they should use CSS and set the width based on character widths. This would allow people to bump up the font size and keep it looking good.

But then agin, the whole thing is irritating. Web designers forget, unlike TV, surfing isn't passive. You piss of a viewer, they walk.

Ciao!

Solves half the problem

[crow]

This solves half the problem. The other half is that the ads are still loaded, just not displayed. I'm using a variant of the style sheet hack, along with Proxy Auto Config to redirect requests to ad sites to a server that returns transparent gifs for every request. It works much like JunkBuster, only it's integrated with the browser, so you don't have the side effects of using a proxy for every request (e.g., it's not any slower).

Now I hardly ever see ads, and the ads I don't see never get loaded in the first place, saving my bandwidth. Of course, that means that the web sites I visit never record a hits on their ad servers from me, whereas using the style sheet alone is completely transparent to the server.

Oh, and both the Proxy Auto Config and the Style Sheet hacks should work just fine with most web browsers, not just Mozilla and Safari.

*cough*

[Fweeky]

anti-banner.css, and I don't assume you're using Mozilla. I'd be interested to hear if it works in other browsers (other than Opera/Mozilla/IE, that is), and in receiving instructions on how to use it in them.

The latest version of Safari?

[shippo]

Do you mean the one that has just appeared in Software Update - 1.0 Beta 2 (v73)?

Junkbuster?

[bedouin]

I've been using Junkbuster to block ads for the past two years, but it's becoming pretty much ineffective since the blocklist is never updated.

Anyone know of a source for fresh blocklists, or a program that's updated more regularly? I'd prefer to keep it Junkbuster if possible.

by the way...

[gabe]

Apple released Safari beta 73 this morning via software update. Enjoy.

Keep editing your HOSTS file

[Anonymous Coward]

Blocking via CSS still downloads the ads to you. You just aren't seeing them. Although blocking via CSS is a valuable tool, particularly in some corporate environments, it does not replace the HOSTS file.

Blocks Flash ads!

[Jobe_br]

For those not aware of this, it is possible to use this CSS method of blocking ads to block Flash advertisements .. arguably, the most annoying. Try something like so:

embed[type="application/x-shockwave-flash"][width= "468"][height="60"]
{
display: none !important;
visibility: hidden !important;
}

As you find Flash ads that aren't blocked, just add another entry for the size of ad you're seeing ... in my CSS, I have at least 8-10 such entries. Common sizes are:

• 468x60
• 728x90
• 120x600
• 336x280
• 300x250
• 180x150
• 240x400
• 468x240
• 120x600
• 160x600
• 336x280

hosts is still the easy way to go

[snuffdiddy23]

open Directory Access.app and enable BSD Configuration files, get a good hosts file and pico /etc/hosts usually does fine for most of my content blocking needs. if i knew how to use vi i could probably cut a good four and half seconds off that.