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Ad Block Plus Filter Maintainer "rick752" Dies At 56
A user on Reddit pointed out that Richard "rick752" Petnel, maintainer of one of the most popular filter lists for Ad Block Plus, has passed away at age 56. In an article last year Petnel described a bit of what he was up against in the ad world. "'I'm playing against some pretty big players,' he said, explaining his reluctance to step forward. 'I don't want to be harassed. . . . I don't want to be bribed. I started it because I was frustrated with getting my computer infected from ads -- malware and spyware and all that stuff,' he said. 'I kind of went overboard with it. But you have to admit, it's pretty amazing, right?'" Update 15:05 GMT by SM: updated to reflect Rick's status as maintainer of the most popular Ad Block Plus filter as opposed to Ad Block Plus itself.
does this mean no new updates?
I would give everything i own for a little bit more.
http://forums.lanik.us/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=3366
Donations made to:
Community Hospice of Albany
445 New Karner Rd.
Albany, NY 12205
Though it's sad that the maintainer of one of AdBlock Plus' block lists (the "EasyList") died he still wasn't the maintainer of AdBlock Plus itself.
That's still Wladimir Palant, as can be easily seen here.
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
Someone else can maintain AdBlock, no one else can be his daughter's father.
Someone else already does maintain Adblock Plus: Wladimir Palant. The summary is incorrect. Rick Petnel maintained the most popular filter list for Adblock, not the addon itself.
That said, it still sucks for his family.
From that post:
It's with great sadness that have to announce the passing of a good friend and our EasyList author, Rick752. Rick had suffered a stroke on St Patrick' Day, and I was just informed that Rick had passed away last evening. During this short period, while hospitalized, Rick had his family very close by his side. There was some able communication and awareness between Rick and his family before his passing and although given this short period to "prepare" for the inevitable, this news (as with any of this type) is still quite shocking and difficult to accept.
He had a stroke about two weeks ago:
http://forums.lanik.us/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=3366
"Rick had suffered a stroke on St Patrick' Day"
So you click the big stop sign and then click "Disable on Hulu.com". You are seriously arguing that this is a problem?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Just install Ad Block Plus, after the Firefox restart associated with installing it, you'll get a popup asking you to choose a list. The default (which is EasyList, the one maintained by rick752) will do the job very well.
Sturgeon was an optimist.
What is the difference between Ad Block and Ad Block Plus?
Adblock Plus is faster, has more powerful filtering rules, and has a cleaner subscription mechanism. There is no reason to use the original Adblock any more. Go with ABP.
Do I need to get blacklists elsewhere or are they included in the above-mentioned extensions?
You do not need to manually download any blacklists. ABP supports subscribing to remote blacklists, which it will automatically update itself from. It will automatically suggest a few lists to subscribe to when you first install it.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
I compromise: I allow static images through the filter with @@|$image
If only this could be modded higher than 5
No, actually I was arguing the opposite, but managed to delete the "I've had to do this on one hand." part somehow while I was editing.
Shadus
I've never used AdBlock — I just use NoScript. I'm not blocking based on content, I'm just enforcing tighter security on my computer.
It cleanly kneecaps admonger arguments — static ads (I also disable animated gifs) and text ads display just fine, but you don't have my permission to run Flash, Java, or JavaScript on my system. And strangely enough, NoScript's control is finely-grained enough to give a site general permission to execute content without also granting access to skeevyads.cx and other bastions of consumer rights.
(And I'd use NoScript even if it did none of those things, because the act of *not loading a PDF by default* has saved me hours and hours of dodging lockups and crashes.)
Yahoo! Pipes are awesome. How awesome? http://pipes.yahoo.com/jesdynf/slashdot
Try NoScript (noscript.net). It is a bit of a hassle until your trusted sites are added, but it sure saves a lot of trouble in the long run.
You can just Tools->Options (or Edit->Preferences) and then Privacy tab->Cookies->Keep until I close Firefox. You can then use the exceptions button or even the "site info" dialog box to decide who gets to give you permanent cookies. No extension needed!
$ make available