the web

2 posts

Why I Disabled AdBlock and How it Could Be Done Better

Adblockplus_iconI was an Adblock Plus user for as long as I can remember. But Adblock comes at a price, the sites that provide content can’t do it for free.

It’s true that Adblock made the web a much simpler place with far less clutter, no shouting flashing banners and annoying giant yellow bouncing things. For a long time I thought I was an ethical ad blocker because I disabled on sites that I frequented and liked, but otherwise I kept the default setting as block all ads for all other sites. But I was still visiting those other sites when I would Google something and land somewhere. Some of those sites provided me with valuable information, but I wasn’t doing my part to help them stay in existence. Continue reading →

Your Obsessive Web Browsing

Have you ever wondered how many times you’ve visited a website?  If you’re using Firefox and haven’t cleared your browsing history (they have a private mode for that you know) then your web browser will tell you.

  • Right click on the page background
  • Select “View Page Info”
  • Click on the Security tab at the top, it’s the one with the lock
  • Now read the line that says,  “Have I visited this web site prior to today?”

Shout out with your ridiculously high numbers for your favorite websites.  This number isn’t an exact science and only goes as far back as the last time you cleared history, but it’s fun to get an idea of how many times you’ve obsessively refreshed a particular site.