Ad filtering

Ad filtering or ad blocking is a service which removes or alters advertisement content in a webpage. This content can be represented in a variety of ways including pictures, animations, text, or Pop-up ad. More advanced filters allow fine-grained control of advertisements through features like blacklists, whitelists, and regular expression filters. Certain security features also have the effect of disabling some ads.

The immediate benefits include cleaner looking webpage free from advertisements and lower resource-usage (bandwidth, CPU, memory, etc.). One drawback is that advertisements are a major source of revenue for many websites. However, the actual loss of revenue, when present, is difficult to measure.

=Browser integration=

Some web browsers support ad filtering through built-in features and Plugins. A number of popular browsers include a pop-up blocker, such as Microsoft s Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox , Opera Software s Opera (web browser), and Apple Computer s Safari (web browser). All of these browsers support extensions and/or plugins which can include ad filters. For example, Adblock is a popular extension (Mozilla) for Firefox.

=External programs=

A number of external applications offer ad filtering as a primary or additional feature. A traditional solution is to customize an , [http://proximodo.sourceforge.net/ Proximodo], and [http://proxomitron.info Proxomitron]

=Common advertising techniques=

*Pop-up ad *Plaintext *Web_banner *Macromedia Flash *Keyword hyperlinks (for example Vibrant Media s IntelliTXT[http://www.vibrantmedia.com]) *Browser plugins/extensions (often labeled as Adware) *External applications (see Adware, Spyware)

=See also=

*Online advertising *Adblock extension for Mozilla Firefox

=External links=

*[http://www.dvhardware.net/articles14.html Howto use Adblock] *[http://yro.slashdot.org/article.plsid=05/06/23/1428223 DoubleClick Warns Against Ad-Blocking Browsers] *[http://www.jd5000.net/proxo/ JD s proxomitron filterset]