Dave Massy's Blog

# re: NeoWin interview @ Tuesday, February 01, 2005 7:50 AM

Hi,
does anyone know if somebody has written an IE plugin similar in functionality to the Firefox 'AdBlock' extension, at a similar price (zero zlotys)?
There must be such an animal floating somewhere in the vibrant ecosystem! ;-)
I dont think I could go back to the garish flashing mess of The Internet Without AdBlock...

IM

# re: NeoWin interview @ Tuesday, February 01, 2005 8:33 AM

IM, why not just use Firefox?

Get rid of the 'rich' features (spyware) offered by ActiveX and you'll have less ads (and adware) out of the box!

Zeta Blocker

# re: NeoWin interview @ Tuesday, February 01, 2005 11:05 AM

This comment is being posted just to prevent the comment counter from being 666.

Signed,
--Intel processor marketing team

Vermyndax

# re: NeoWin interview @ Wednesday, February 02, 2005 10:15 AM

'Why not use Firefox?' I do use Firefox.

But since this is the weblog of the IE Senior Program Manager, I was wondering if IE will ever have this 'essential' (to me) piece of functionality (AdBlock) without which I wont be using IE, except when forced to because a particular website doesnt work in FF.

I want to make it clear I'm not having an anti-MS whinge about it. :) If IE had tabbed browsing, and the equivalent functionality of the extensions I use in FF (etc etc etc, I'm not being picky you understand ;)), I would have no problem going back to it. Oh, and Im not paying for any of that. Browsers are by definition free nowadays IYAM, vibrant ecosystems be damned.
I have no problem with 'security issues', 'activeX support', or 'standards'. Although I have seen IE instances encrusted with spyware and adware when used by non-expert users, so I reluctantly accept it is a problem.

To summarise, I dont care hugely whether IE gets these features, but I do think that the issue of 'missing features' tends to get hand-waved away with platitudes about vibrant ecosystems, and 'power users' are left with their questions dodged.

Alternatively, where do I look in MSDN to get started on my IEAdBlock plugin :)

IM

# re: Adblock @ Friday, February 11, 2005 10:24 AM

I would like to follow the AdBlock comments by pointing out that my web experience is increasingly impared by advertisements that are designed to distract my attention. The primary means that this is accomplished is by the use of animation -- flash plugin, animated gifs, java applet -- whatever.

The way many of these anti-ads work is by keeping a record of the URL associated with each individual "dancing" image. If I were to suggest an improvement to IE it would be to allow the user to "force" static rendering of all images on a domain-by-domain basis. That is, don't animate anything served up through wired.com or cnn.com, etc. Then offer the ability to request (eg right-click > animate) animation on a per-image basis.

This way, default is static and exceptions are animated rather than the reverse. For me, this would improve my browsing experience. Thanks for your time, and I hope this is sufficiently on-topic.

C