You got your malware in my XSS

[andrewducker]

This is for your primary browser by choice - I feel terribly sorry for you if your work locks you down into IE4, but I'm wondering about what you do when you have options...

[Poll #1645914]

Comments

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

Missing option: I do know what an ad blocker is, but can't be arsed setting it up ;)

This is mostly because I read a lot of webcomics, who gain much of their income via advertising, but I can't be bothered figuring out the ad blocker so that it will whitelist them, or figuring out which sites I should be supporting and which don't need it.

I'm not terminally opposed to ads like some people I know, as long as they're quiet and don't make me close windows. Pop-unders, however, are the spawn of Beelzebub.

[andrewducker]

You deliberately don't set up an adblocker. Or near enough for dodgy-internet polls :-p

I occasionally turn back on ads on some sites that beg me to, and then tend to find that they have massive flashing images that expand to cover up the stuff I actually want to read. Text ads, I'm fine with.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

In Firefox, whitelisting a website is basically going into the AdBlock Plus dropdown and choosing "Disable on this page only".

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Seconded. Can't be arsed.

Plus the time I did set one up some site detected I had and got stroppy.

[andrewducker]

I expect answering "3" and "4" will be correlated with answering "1".

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Could you rephrase that?

[fearmeforiampink]

I turn off Javascript specifically when I want/need to. I could turn it off for a specific site, but rarely have the need.

My browser has an integrated Adblocker/content blocker, which has no ads on it by default, but which I block stuff specifically when I feel like it, generally if it's obnoxious. More likely to do so where I don't care about reducing the site's income (newspaper websites) than when I do (webcomics).

I use Opera.

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

I know what javascript is, however, I just set my preferences to Medium and kinda left it that way, with few modifications, because I don't know any better.

Although going to Die Antwoord's web site gave me a browser hijack that left my computer infected for days, and for some reason, that just seems appropriate.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

I switch between Iceweasel (Debian's rebranded Firefox) and Chromium on an irregular basis at home, but mostly IceWeasel at the moment. I occasionally also use Epiphany. When using IceWeasel I use NoScript and AdBlock Plus, but often end up disabling NoScript, even for sites I don't trust (though I do 'trust', IYSWIM) because so few sites these days are functional without it. I also, more importantly, use Flash Blocker on those occasions when I bother to have a version of Flash installed on my box at all (usually actually Gnash, which I install every few months, then uninstall when YouTube upgrade and it becomes incompatible again).
At work, Firefox with Adblock Plus and Flash Blocker.
All that said, roughly 85% of my browsing is all in Google Reader anyway...

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

yeah flash blocker is something I think is vital.

[draconid.livejournal.com]

Ditto to the comments here on NoScript.

[drplokta]

It's very close between Safari and Chrome. Chrome is faster and more reliable, but Safari just looks better and feels more Mac-like. And my bookmarks sync to the iPhone and iPad over MobileMe. I switched to Chrome when it was available for OS X, but switched back when Safari got extensions.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I can't turn ad blocker on because much of my job as a marketing copywriter is looking at what company's that are competing against my client are doing with their marketing so I have to be able to see the pop ups and other ads and such that occur when I go to their sites.

As for java, it would be too much of a pain in the ass to keep turning it on and off. To get the right slang for various fetishes I have to go into the fetish chatrooms several times a week and they are all run by javascript.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

To get the right slang for various fetishes I have to go into the fetish chatrooms several times a week

I love bumping in to people for whom this is genuinely true and not some feeble dog-ate-my-homework excuse for interesting Internet activity at work.

[andrewducker]

Just as a FYI, you can whitelist stuff with Adblock. So if there are some sites you'd like to see ads on then you can tell it that, and still avoid them on the other sites.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

BTW, Java isn't Javascript.

Java is the grey box that loads slowly on some sites and doesn't feel like the rest of the web. It's like a slower Flash.

Javascript enhances regular web pages with stuff like form validation, login boxes that pop up without loading a new page, image galleries that pop up without loading a new page, and so on.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

I run NoScript after a nasty couple of virus incidents last year (don't run unstrusted video, kids!). An unfortunate side-effect of this is that it blocks a lot of ads.

I don't actually mind ads on the 'net at all - indeed, I heartily approve of all the sites I like which are kept running by advertising dollars - but NoScript kills a lot of them as a drive-by.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that most ad networks pay per click rather than per view. You can't just let ads load and ignore them if you want to make that sort of sacrifice.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

My browser configuration is conditioned by the fact that I support many clueless clients, and try to keep my machine in as non-locked-down a state as possible, to mirror their usual configuration (apart from being routinely logged in as a non-admin user).

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

It's more that I don't bother using an Adblocker than a deliberate decision not to use one - most of the time I just don't notice adverts enough to be bothered by them.

Although Firefox is my browser of choice I use IE quite a lot as my webmail client is slightly broken in firefox. At some point I'll get round to setting up a real mail client, and then I'll use IE a lot less.

[andrewducker]

I recommend RoundCube. I use it when I need webmail and it works very well. Didn't take me long to install on a server - it's PHP based, using MySQL, Postgres or SQLite as the backend.

[lizzie-and-ari.livejournal.com]

2. 5) haven't got round to installing adblocker yet 'cause I'm not sure what's the best one.

Do you have a link? :)

[andrewducker]

http://adblockplus.org/en/installation
After it's installed (and restarted firefox) it'll ask you to choose a subscription - this picks up a list of places to block. Just choose the default option it gives you.

Oh, and do you still have a Julie? I'd like to find out what our plans are for tonight, but she seems to have vanished into the ether.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

I really should install a script-blocker and then whitelist scripts on a case-by-case basis. I trust myself to do this, but it's hassle that will stretch out over weeks, so I don't bother.

[andrewducker]

I'd rather have a script blocker that was blacklisting things, and downloading a list from a central location (adblock-style). No such thing seems to exist though.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Wot no Konqueror users? Camino? Flock? SeaMonkey? Someone must be using them, and I'd have guessed your readership would include those people if anybody's did.

I am amused but not surprised that - on here at least, at time of writing - IE's share is about the same as Safari + Opera.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, not many IE users here.

And I don't think anyone uses those other browsers now.

[alextfish.livejournal.com]

I leave JS enabled, because it does good things for usability on most sites that use it, and I don't think it can do anything too bad because I keep my browser patched enough and stay away from the really dodgy bits of the net.

I "use" an adblocker, but deliberately don't sync from any central list of ads. I'm happy for most ads around the net to load into my browser; I occasionally even click on some of them.

I block specific ads if they offend me (which includes almost everything that flickers, flashes or blinks). The old interface to AdBlock was much better for this than the new AdBlockPlus interface, but eh, what can you do.

I also have FlashBlock, because most flickering/flashing/blinking things are Flash, and the proportion of web Flash content that I like is much smaller than the proportion of web JS that I like. If I go to a site with 10 Flash apps, I generally want to see one of them, and would rather the other 9 weren't distracting me by blinking.


So I'm not sure how to answer question 2, because the concept of "use one" in the terms of the question seems to assume "use one and use a list of ads synced from some central database".

[wychwood]

I use NoScript, and therefore generally speaking adverts don't tend to show up that often, so I don't bother with a separate ad-blocker.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

In other news, my memory of this post reminded me that I needed to include a noscript message on E's website, so thanks for that!

[andrewducker]

I'm intrigued now - what do you do when people are using noscript? And how do you detect it?