Install AdBlock Plus (free!) to rid your webpages of annoying ads and speed up your browsing

Over the past few years, internet ads have slowly crept their way from existing as minor annoyances to being a regular pain in the ass. What started as relatively unobtrusive banners at the tops and bottom of pages and blocks in the margins have evolved to become scrolling, blinking, text-blocking, distracting, sometimes hard-to-close monsters. I hate them.

This morning I boiled over on the topic. I was trying to do some quick research on something that I needed to fix, and every website I went to was inundated with ads. I had to spend several seconds figuring out how to close several of them because they hid the ‘x’ in a hard to see part of the ad. Enough!

This post is not an exhaustive list of ad blockers that are available these days. Quite frankly, this is a straight forward topic and I don’t feel the need to write a long post about it. If you want longer details, check out this article from the folks over at Tom’s Guide about many of the options available.

For me, it’s simple. Go with one of the best solutions that’s been around for a long time, is reputable, and is endorsed by major publications and review websites. Don’t even spend time thinking about it. That solution is AdBlock Plus from eye/o GmbH.

You can download the needed browser extension directly from the AdBlock website, or Mac users can install it from the Mac App Store. There are versions available for Windows and mobile devices as well. Make sure you turn off the option in the software for ‘Allow Acceptable Ads’ in order to get a total ad-free experience. If a website that you use forces you to allow it to serve ads, then you can click one button to turn off AdBlock Plus for those websites and the software will remember that setting for the future. For example, two websites that I use (NBCNews.com and CNBC.com) require ad blockers to be disabled for their sites.

Try it, it’s free. You have nothing to lose, and you have your internet-using sanity to win back. The lightweight app installs in just a few clicks, and as soon as you load some of your previously ad-bloated websites you’ll be pleased with the results. Enjoy a saner internet!