ad-block

Apple's built-in browser, Safari, is not very friendly to outside plug-ins or services. For them to work, often a proxy or invasive app is needed that can access your data. It's not an ideal solution. So, AdBlock for iPhone, iPad, and iTouch, produced as a hobby by developer Benjamin Loewe, is a fantastic solution. Designed and implemented as a standalone Web browser, AdBlock promises to stop pop-ups, layer ads, blinking banner ads, and subscription traps from appearing on screen -- an increasingly common problem in the age of smartphone Web browsing. The browser starts up immediately, much like … Read more

France, unlike the U.S., has had relaxed rules on whether Internet service providers can block online content -- until today that is.

The French government has ruled that one of the country's biggest Web providers, Free, must halt all online ad blocking, according to the New York Times.

"An Internet service provider cannot unilaterally implement such blocking," the French minister for the digital economy Fleur Pellerin said at a news conference, according to the Times. "This kind of blocking is inconsistent with a free and open Internet, to which I am very attached."

For the past couple of years, Adobe Flash has been attacked by Apple for being a clunky add-on that causes numerous crashes and other problems for Safari and other Web browsers on the Mac. Given the advancements in HTML5, Flash has been slated as unnecessary by Steve Jobs and others who have been promoting the new HTML5 standard's features as an alternative for rendering Web media and other rich content.

Despite these efforts, Adobe has managed to improve Flash and add a number of new features such as hardware acceleration to the handling of images and video, which have … Read more

It's getting more and more difficult to protect your privacy on the Web. Just as we're invited to share our thoughts and experiences with friends, family, and the universe, there's somebody recording it all and looking to make a buck from it, legally or otherwise. The key is to find the right balance between the Web's convenience and your security.

Here are five Firefox add-ons that help keep you safe on the Web without hindering your full use out of its best services. (Note that last month I described free Facebook security scanners, and in April … Read more

Google is polishing its Chrome browser with the help of open-source extensions similar to the add-ons that have made Mozilla's Firefox the Web browser to beat when it comes to versatility and options. Lex1's AdBlock+ Element Hiding Helper is a good example. As the name suggests, it blocks various kinds of animated elements, typically advertising, in Google's Chrome. If you haven't tried Chrome yet, here's your chance, and you can do worse than to make AdBlock+ one of your first extensions.

AdBlock+ is easy to use, with a few simple keystroke combinations controlling all the … Read more

Ars Technica's Ken Fisher recently wrote an impassioned plea to turn off ad-blocking software like AdBlock Plus to save the online publishing industry. His attempt to turn back the clock on digitization, however, would likely accomplish the opposite.

Fisher has a good point: ad-blocking software almost certainly does hurt sites like CNET by denying them revenue. As he points out, "[m]ost [large] sites...are paid on a per view basis," not a click-through basis, which means that ad-blocking software very literally takes money out of the pockets of publishers, leading consumers to "devastat[e]...the … Read more

NASA is sending a rocket into the moon Friday morning to study the composition of lunar material. But really, you stopped listening when you heard "blow up the Moon." And so did Cooley. For one small second, that made him love space. We also talk about the world's largest phishing sting and Windows 8. Yep, 8.

Operation “Phish Phry” nabs largest number of phishers ever. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8295945.stm

Wife bans FBI head … Read more

Continuing our minitheme from last Friday of browser features crossing platforms with plug-ins, Mac users can now avoid ads pain-free and for free with Safari AdBlock.

… Read more

Do you consider yourself to be a privacy aware Internet user? Are you concerned about your security online?

You've installed antivirus and spyware software, which you also keep updated. You regularly update your operating system for any security patches. You have a firewall on your home computer and have locked down your home wireless network with a WPA2 password. Most importantly, you've ditched Internet Explorer and jumped on the Firefox bandwagon.

Your job is done, right? Think again.

While installing Firefox (and not using IE) is one of the most important steps users can take towards a safe online experience, Firefox is (alas) not totally safe out of the box. Luckily, Firefox provides a very flexible framework for open-source programmers and commercial vendors to create their own software add-ons for the browser. A number of these software extensions fix critical design flaws in Firefox--or simply improve transparency so that users have a better idea of where they are and which sites they're interacting with. I've selected a few of the best ones, which I highlight below.

… Read more