New Browser Needed

mpm prodded the keyboard with:

I doubt that a new browser would do what you think. I currently blacklist the addresses that the web pages get the advertising info from. This gets rid of more than half of the junk, though if you have placeholders turned on you still see where the advert should be.

Unfortunately we as consumers have let the internet become what it is today, a global advertising system, and it will only get worse. I think that this is one of the reasons that ISP's are trying to kill off usenet, since there is no HTML it is a lot harder to get your adverts out and it a lot eaiser for users to kill any spam.

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Best Regards: 
                      Baron.

Firefox has lots of options and addons. I have declared Flash as optional, off by default. You can freeze animated GIFs. There's a Mute plugin. Reader mode lets you turn annoying pages into near-plain-text display. There are a number of about:config settings that improve life.

This will fix some of the things you dislike:

When something in Firefox annoys you, a brief search will generally find an easy fix. I keep a list of my tweaks so I can reproduce them on a new PC.

Of course, don't use Google for search or mail or most anything else. They will track everything and read your mail and sell your soul for ads. I use Ixquick for search. I use google Maps and Patents once in a while and don't notice any serious tracking problems.

I used to use Earth until google decided that my video card is inadequate. I guess my new Dells will fix that.

I used to post pics to Earth via Panaramio, but google acquired Panaramio and trashed my account and all of my pics. Google is indeed evil.

Yes, tweaking Firefox is a minor chore, but worth it.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   laser drivers and controllers 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

This has nothing to do with electronics, especially analog electronics.

Me as well, but startups are where good ideas go to die. If you want to profit from your idea, start an actual business. If you want to provide a service to the humanity, publish a (finished) FOSS project. The *only* reason to start a startup is to swindle money out of the system. But since the Feds aren't printing money ATM, it's near impossible to do.

BTW, you can *severely* improve loading times and also solve most of the problems you have by disabling Javascript. The websites still look good.

Don't visit sites that present the ads, and tell the website owner what you're doing and why.

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www.wescottdesign.com

I saw that, and am going to give it a try...

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Google announced it is going to let th e Google Earth API die later this year (Dec 2015). Wonderful... They're g oing to focus on GE for tablets and smartphones instead.

In Google's defense, Panoramio was getting out of hand long before they wer e acquired. My pet peeve there was all the wanna-be real estate agents tho ught it was a great platform to highlight and sell properties (even though Panoramio's T&C's expressly forbid that).

[snip]

[snip]

John, thanks for the pointer to Ixquick. I like what I'm seeing...

G

In my experience, there is no happy medium. If you set up for one annoyance, doing so creates others. Like sites that won't load, or buttons that no longer work correctly becaus e of something you changed. And even if you did find a semi-happy medium, it wouldn't last because there's the ever-present irrestible force guiding useless and continual driver and software "updates".

For example, one of my clients requires VPN and the use of their proxy, or nothing works. But, if I don't reset the proxy after terminating the VPN s ession, then a huge number of URL's won't it past the DNS. Which URL's make it through appears to be totally random. (These would all be legitimate s ites, in case you were wondering.)

I'll grant you this: Disabling javascript would at least remove another an noyance: That of CONSTANT patching for viruses and such.

That's a *lot* more work than installing AdBlock.

Tim

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Seven Transistor Labs, LLC 
Electrical Engineering Consultation and Contract Design 
Website: http://seventransistorlabs.com

+42

I run with JS disabled, no flash (not even the binary present on my machine!), Ad Block, no cookies, etc. From time to time, I'll visit a site that requires me to start re-enabling JS for selected domains (though all of the *google* domains are the *last* ones I will enable; ditto facebook, twitter, etc.)

At some point, I just say "screw it" and abandon the site. Chances are, I'll find what I need somewhere else (I mainly use the web to chase down technical articles, etc.)

OTOH, if you are trying to prevent yourself from being *tracked*, then the more of these measures you adopt, the *easier* it is for you to be tracked.

[If this is counterintuitive, imagine having a UNIQUE browser that blocks all of this unwanted cruft. Any time you visit a site, the site (and its confederates) notices what your browser inhibits and *knows* you are "that guy with the UNIQUE browser!"]

So, what you really want is a browser that *pretends* to allow all of this cruft and then silently discards it (to save you the trouble of having to *see*/interact with it).

Of course, if you run IE, then you *know* MS is seeing all of your searches, etc. After all, isn't that what the issue is for advertisers? "What is this person INTERESTED in??"

What you need is already there, give a look at these:

Palemoon: faster and lighter Firefox-based browser

uBlock origin: a very light on resources ad blocking extension that replaces ADBlock Plus.

Disconnet: a tracker blocking extension that replaces Ghostery.

https everywhere: encrypts your web communications to avoid being tracked/ spied by well known agencies and other enemies of democracy.

(here's a version compatible with Pale Moon since the official one is not)

Actually this is the only extension of mine that required a specific version for Pale Moon since all other ones worked flawlessly (I have 22 installed).

This one os also worth a look and some people prefer it over ixquick.

Try doing modern electronic design without using the Web.

I notice that you use gmail.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   laser drivers and controllers 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Google operates many "private ISP" mail services, as well. So, just because the address you're sending to is NOT "gmail.com" doesn't mean google isn't parsing every byte in your conversation!

is there any specific reason why you want to do this the hard way?

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umop apisdn

Nah. ISPs are getting rid of the Usenet because it costs too much money for the three customers who use it. There are also too many free or very low cost servers to lose sleep over it. To look at it another way, how many customers did they lose because they dropped their Usenet servers?

I just put up with this.

Hmm... I'll concede that one.

As an MTA. I actually use Claws-mail, Gmail is just a conduit.

I remember trying ddg once, can't remember why I stopped...

On Sat, 11 Jul 2015 19:13:28 -0400, krw Gave us:

Cox dumped it so they could use the servers and real estate for VOD services.