Just a Friendly Reminder Regarding Adblock Plus
You're using Firefox, yes? Adblock Plus as well? Good. Now what filters are you using? I just learned recently with the whole LJ Snap Shots fiasco that the old Filterset.G Updater I was using with the old Adblock is no good with ABP - in fact, it's downright incompatible:
Actually, it is recommended not to use Filterset.G with Adblock Plus. There are several reasons for this:
▪ Filterset.G has been intentionally made incompatible with the built-in subscriptions feature in Adblock Plus, updating Filterset.G requires a separate extension which basically duplicates existing functionality.
▪ Filterset.G is not optimized for use with Adblock Plus, it will slow down your browsing considerably more than any other filter list.
▪ Filterset.G makes heavy use of very complicated regular expressions with the consequence that finding the source of problems is difficult and fixing those problems is even more so. In fact, Filterset.G is fixing most problems with exception rules which creates a problem on its own (see next point).
▪ Filterset.G contains a considerable number of exception rules. This is a big problem because exception rules cannot be overridden. It happened on several occasions that exception rules from Filterset.G whitelisted actual ads making these ads unblockable - something users usually blamed Adblock Plus for.
While Filterset.G has had its uses in the past, nowadays other filter lists are certainly a better choice. If you already have Filterset.G Updater installed, you can uninstall the extension and remove the Filterset.G subscription in the Adblock Plus Preferences dialog. Feel free to choose any subscription from the list then.
The good thing about said lists is that it's a one-time deal: click "Subscribe" on any subscription in that table, confirm, and you're good to go - the filters update themselves automatically without needing an extra add-on like Filterset.G was. That said, I highly recommend Jamie Plucinski's filters (also found at the bottom of the list on the ABP page), since I actually know the guy and can report additional filters to be integrated into his. So far it's been able to catch pretty much every ad/script I've come across, but of course, your mileage may vary.
Thus concludes this public service announcement. Have a nice, ad-free day.