Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Block Web Content?

First time accepted submitter willoughby writes "Many routers today have the capability to block web content. And you all know about browser addons like noscript & adblock. But where is the 'proper' place for such content blocking? Is it best to have the router only route packets & do the content blocking on each machine? If using the content blocking feature in the router, will performance degrade if the list of blocked content grows large? Where is the best place to filter/block web content?"

Comments

Nice Try China!

[eldavojohn]

I'd suggest paying a lot of money to Blue Coat to do deep packet inspection so none of that content sneaks by.

Or, perhaps, sitting down with your users and discussing with them how to surf intelligently and safely.

And you all know about browser addons like noscript & adblock. But where is the 'proper' place for such content blocking?

If you're talking about adblocking, the 'proper' place is at your visual cortex where images are processed -- and I know I'm alone in that unpopular view. Blocking ads is like throwing a soda can out a car window in that if one person does it, it's not a problem and it appears to benefit them modestly. But if everyone does it, it ruins the very thing you're enjoying. I can understand why you'd do it if the ad was a massive flash blob but many ads by Google or just images aren't resource intensive.

I've clicked on ads and purchased something twice in my life from ads on a site. Once it was cheap shirts with funny designs on them (I needed new gym shirts) and the other was an eBay auction with a Buy It Now price lower than what I was looking at on that site (not sure how that works). I consider myself a pretty sophisticated person who is "above" advertising but anecdote-wise it's worked on me twice that I can think of. Removing that rare occurrence completely ruins the revenue model.

Re:Nice Try China!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Removing that rare occurrence completely ruins the revenue model.

GOOD! That revenue model is the single largest driver of the internet surveillance state. It is difficult to imagine an funding model for the internet with worse social costs. The sooner it dies, opening the door to replacement systems that are less invasive the better off we all are.