If and only when I enter a contract to exchange ads for content / service will I willfully allow my ram to be occupied by crap that I do not want.

If you don’t like it and if you think your content is good enough to not offer for free, then please step up. The truth is that if I had to log in to read this article I would not have read it.

2) The extension review process is at fault, one extension should not be able to affect another unless that is the specific purpose.

Really your article consists of a rant about ads provided content and a real news item one extension eats another. The real story is over at the forums in firefox extensions.

Let’s be honest. US is the nation of consumers who love shopping and purchase much more than necessary. Whoever has good product, only needs to make it available. Put up a website, create good customer service, don’t cheat, and you will be successful. Submit your pricelist to pricewatch and 1,000 other shopping engines, and the customers will come. Newegg does not need popups and flashing ads.

With rare exceptions, flashing ads are misleading and deceptive. The more it pops up into your eye, the more surely you can bet that business model is based not on good product and competitive price but on hope that you won’t notice fine print. Like calling card for “only” 3 cents per minute plus 50 cents connection fee and $1/week maintenance fee. And that is the real reason why people avoid them. People love to shop, but they don’t like to be cheated. The same folks who spend hours on shopping around in shopping mall, and whose garage has turned into the warehouse of useless junk long ago, will block ads because they know that practically each one will cheat on them.

Until Ajaxian fixes this, add this filter:

http://ajaxian.com/wp-content/themes/ajaxian/images/bg_*

It blocks:

html {
background: #000 url(“images/bg_main.gif”) repeat 0 1px fixed;
}
body {
background: transparent url(“images/bg_wrapper.gif”) repeat-y 50% 0 fixed;
color: #333;
font: 0.7em/160% Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}

I would if I could figure it out. I searched before but gave up. Please tell me how. Numerous tabs with about 50 confusing checkboxes in there, no idea which options to uncheck or check to get that, or what overrides what, nothing that says “allow all JavaScript” and ignore all these other checkboxes except…, etc.

Noscript badly needs a simple first dialogue box with a basic protection mode (xss/clearjack?), medium mode, total mode. 3 options or go to advanced config. It’s a usability nightmare in there as-is. Be nice if some usability guru out there could support his project with a redesigned GUI.

(On the flip side, I still think the adBlock guys were very wrong to deliberately target his little site to prevent him from supporting his project, as they well knew they were doing. Where is any discussion of why they did such a nasty thing to another add-on developer, and to the point even of ruining his site’s links and such as he says?)

Hear hear. I don’t run NoScript to block ads — I run NoScript because *I* get to decide what runs on my computer, not a website. (I find it amazing how many people don’t understand that JavaScript, be it ad scripts or tracking scripts, runs on *your* computer, not a server.)

@stylo

Did you try “allowing all JavaScript” and just enabling XSS protection (and clearjack protection)? I actually advise a lot of people to do this with noscript since handling individual javascript sources is sadly beyond most novice users’ ability, but the XSS and clearjack protection is passive.

The next step is for browsers to get their ads pipelined via secured video overlays tied to CPU keys. Instead of extensions we’ll need whitehat crackers to keep the web safe.

And before, for ages, a submission used to go to a blank page. Hire someone from adBlock or Noscript to maintain the site and keep them busy ;-)

http://hackademix.net/2009/05/04/dear-adblock-plus-and-noscript-users-dear-mozilla-community/

Thanks, that is an EXCELLENT write up by him, I congratulate him for that, and, frankly, the guys at Adblock come across as jerks on this. Why would they even consider targeting his little site??? Who ever visits it? Why would they care if his ads display? They provide a tool for users, not clear the web of all ads everywhere for us. Adblock evidently targeted him out of petty spite and went to some lengths to do so, even ruining his site in the process. Ridiculous. I can understand noScripts initial anger and competitiveness to block Adblock’s targeting of him, even if he went about it wrong for a few days.

And I say that as a user of Adblock and not noScript. (Personally, I find noScript ruins the web experience. If I could figure out how to set it to help block xss type attacks only, nothing else at all, I would use it.)

What the guy from noScript should have done, as he clearly understands now, is simply expose what adBlock was doing in targeting him to such ridiculous lengths.

>>I already didn’t pay attention to the ads, and now I don’t have to consider whether or not to pay attention. I don’t believe I’ve ever clicked through an ad…

Perfect explanation. Exactly my case. And the other 98% of people on the web still viewing them can click if they want to.

Maybe this is a sign that eventually browser add-ons should be sandboxed. Each one could have an explicit whitelist of add-ons that can be notified of its existence and a message passing system to communicate. Maybe this is crazy.

Being able to have YSlow/FirePHP/etc. piggyback on Firebug is nice, e.g., but when any add-on can arbitrarily overwrite the settings of others… installer beware.

I already didn’t pay attention to the ads, and now I don’t have to consider whether or not to pay attention. I don’t believe I’ve ever clicked through an ad: If I’m looking for something, I search, and search ads are also inorganic results, so I ignore those too. If reducing useless visual clutter makes me self-righteous, then I am one self-righteous motherfucker.

The reason I run NoScript has nothing to do with ads. And it’s not because I hate JS or Flash. It’s simply that I want to decide for myself when I care enough about a site to turn on its goodies.

What kind of yellow journalism is this? Are you (Chris Heilmann) advocating that the NoScript maker was completely in the right to modify ABP without announcing the change to either ABP or the NoScript users? Granted that blocking ads is a decision of conscience. Which side a internet consumer takes is not something an unbiased news site should weigh in on…oh wait. Ajaxian is ad-based…right…I forgot. Please, root by box with ads.

(Notice I’m posting this is a browser that does not have any form of ad-blocking enabled.)