Friday, December 15, 2006



Ding dong the paywall's dead

As I'm sure you've all noticed by now, the New Zealand Herald has a new website (so does Stuff, but that's less important). But apart from being prettier yet somehow more irritating to navigate (there's no longer the long list of stories down the side of each page), it also makes a very welcome change: there's no more paywall, so their opinion content is available to all again. I guess they decided that there was no point locking away their best content where people couldn't see it (and where it would earn them no advertising revenue).

On the minus side, those big animated ads make it a bit of a browser hog. Any suggestions as to how to kill them?

8 comments:

Install Firefox, and the AdBlock and FlashBlock plugins.

Posted by Duncan Bayne : 12/15/2006 11:21:00 AM

yeah, echoing duncan, firefox with adblock - never see a big ugly banner ad again.

Posted by noizy : 12/15/2006 11:49:00 AM

"I don't see no fookin ads either" says this other Firefox user hehehe.

I/S I am using AdBlock, Filterser.G, Nuke Anything Plus (for onetime only image/flash blocking) and NoScript (which will deal to flash and a myriad of other web annoyances too)

Grab them all at the following links:

http://adblockplus.org/en/
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1136/
http://www.noscript.net/whats
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/951/

I couldn't live without any of the above (and firefox) and another must-have extension for bloggers is this one here, which allows you do resize the text input box to something bigger than a postage stamp:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3818/

May the source be with you ;-)

Posted by zANavAShi : 12/15/2006 01:20:00 PM

Firefox with Adblock Plus. Do NOT use Filterset G Updater (see The Adblock Plus FAQ).

I barely see any adverts any more, I when I do, they go pretty soon afterwards.

Posted by Anonymous : 12/15/2006 02:09:00 PM

Oh I/S, how about the mote in thine own eye? I'm afraid your blog ties my browser up in nots owing to its dodgy html and huge javascript downloads from 3rd parties.

If you want a hand to give it some html love I'd be happy to assist.

Posted by stephen : 12/15/2006 02:45:00 PM

Zanavashi and others: thanks for the advice; I'll install them and see how it goes. If people want to try and colonise my field of view, they canbloody well pay me for it.

Stephen: I know. And when I can finally take this blog into Blogger Beta, I'll be ditching that (essential) javaScript comment function in favour of a nice, clean RSS feed.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 12/15/2006 04:08:00 PM

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator. Posted by Moz : 12/15/2006 05:54:00 PM

I'm very grateful for the Herald telling me that I should change my screen resolution from 1200x1600 down to 800x600 to make their site look better. That plus the animated gifs take me right back to the 1980's.

Posted by Moz : 12/15/2006 05:55:00 PM