Firefox's Adblock

If any of you have not downloaded and installed the new Firefox v1.0 web browser, you ought to. It's actually a darn good web browser, and is gaining popularity very quickly.

One of the things Mozilla, the makers of Firefox, has innovated is a better plug-in manager. Firefox doesn't use the term "plug-in", but instead calls it an "extension". It's very elegant. By clicking on the Tools menu, and then cliking on "Extensions", you can see a list of extensions currently installed in your Firefox browser. By default, you will have no extentions installed. But it offers a link for "Get more extensions", which when clicked takes you to Firefox's website and shows you all the extenstions available.

One of the most popular extenstions is Firefox's "Adblock".

As a web publisher, who relies on adveritising to keep my publishing work going, I don't like to promote adblocking software. But, I think Firefox's Adblock is worth promoting. The main reason why is because Adblock puts total control into the user's hands.

Most adblocking sofware companies make the decision of what content to remove from your web browser. They decide what is an ad, and what is not an ad. Firefox's Adblock, however, doesn't make any of these decisions. You have to tell Adblock what to block. However, the folks at Mozilla made it very easy and elegant to do this.

When you visit a webpage, you can tell Adblock to show you all the blockable "elements" on that page. Blockable elements include such things as image files (including tracking pixels), Javascript, and IFRAMEs among others. The user can "cherry pick" what elements to block. Firefox remembers those elements and blocks from them any webpage you visit.

But because Adblock is something that is not initially installed with Firefox, and because Adblock does not block anything until you tell it what to block, it gets my preference. I'd rather have folks relying Firefox's Adblock than using any of the other major adblocking software, because it will mean less ads will get blocked.

Before any of you think that is actually a bad thing, think again. Firefox's Adblock gives you the power to decide what to block. How do you know that your existing adblocking software is not blocking out stuff you really wanted to see? How do you know that it's not blocking out content that is not really advertising at all? Do you want to let a software company decide what you should see and not see?

What if a media company like the New York Times, or Disney, or CBS News, decided to buy out and take control of one of the leading adblocking software companies? Talk about censorship!!

For that matter, I would like to see affiliate networks and advertising networks embrace Firefox for taking a responsible approach towards adblocking. If we have to live with adblockers, I'd rather have Firefox's Adblock, than one of the other solutions that tends to get pre-installed on brand new computers.