Ad-infested website

[Herb@UK]

The website of my local newspaper at http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/
has become so 'ad-infested' that it is 'painful' to visit.

I have Adblock Plus installed, but it seems ineffective for dealing with
all the irritating 'nonsense' on the site (or perhaps I'm not using
Adblock Plus properly?).

Any suggestions for making the site more bearable?

Thank you.

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[PietB]

Herb@UK wrote:
> The website of my local newspaper at http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/
> has become so 'ad-infested' that it is 'painful' to visit.
> I have Adblock Plus installed, but it seems ineffective for dealing with
> all the irritating 'nonsense' on the site (or perhaps I'm not using
> Adblock Plus properly?).
> Any suggestions for making the site more bearable?

I do see some ads there, despite ABP, but it's far from unbearable.
But I also see Ghostery blocking 21 trackers, which is impressive.

-p

[rebro]

Am 11.03.2015 um 12:21 schrieb Herb@UK:
> The website of my local newspaper at http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/
> has become so 'ad-infested' that it is 'painful' to visit.
>
> I have Adblock Plus installed, but it seems ineffective for dealing with
> all the irritating 'nonsense' on the site (or perhaps I'm not using
> Adblock Plus properly?).
>
> Any suggestions for making the site more bearable?
>
> Thank you.
>

At my end http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/ is absolutely tame in FF
36.0.1 with NoScript and ABP on: Apart from 5 "recommended offers"
(bottom right) nothing like an ad is visible. The extension *Disconnect*
which is additionally installed in my FF doesn't show any traces of
tracking websites either.

[Herb@UK]

Hi Piet

Thanks for your feedback.

Glad you are enjoying the Leicester Mercury online experience...

I wasn't aware of Ghostery before. Do I detect a hint of sarcasm in your
'impressive' comment? :-)

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[Herb@UK]

PS: The Leicester Mercury homepage isn't too bad, but have a look at an
individual article, e.g.
http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Van-causes-early-morning-traffic-chaos-Leicester/story-26152329-detail/story.html

It really is one of the most ad-infested sites I visit on a regular basis...

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[Herb@UK]

Thanks for your feedback.

I don't have NoScript enabled at present. Perhaps I should consider
re-enabling it...

As for no traces of tracking, see feedback from PietB...

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[Peter]

On 3/11/2015 7:21 AM, Herb@UK wrote:
> The website of my local newspaper at
> http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/ has become so 'ad-infested' that
> it is 'painful' to visit.
>
> I have Adblock Plus installed, but it seems ineffective for dealing
> with all the irritating 'nonsense' on the site (or perhaps I'm not
> using Adblock Plus properly?).
>
> Any suggestions for making the site more bearable?
>
> Thank you.
>

I recently switched from Adblock Plus to uBlock 0.8.8.2 which I find to
be at least as effective at blocking clutter as ABP, plus it seems to
enable a much faster page load/display. Give it a try. You don't even
have to uninstall ABP, just disable it while you try uBlock.

[rebro]

Yes, I have seen PietB's feedback. Nevertheless "Disconnect 3.15.3"
shows zero tracking requests in combination with NoScript, AbP and
BetterPrivacy (enabled) whatever this means.

[rebro]

Meanwhile I have tested http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/ on a second
machine under FF 37b4 with the same extensions as above and the same
results.

[Herb@UK]

Thanks, but did you have a look at an individual article, e.g.
http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Van-causes-early-morning-traffic-chaos-Leicester/story-26152329-detail/story.html
?

As I said earlier, the Leicester Mercury homepage isn't too bad...

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[»Q«]

In
<news:mailman.155.1426072958...@lists.mozilla.org>,

"Herb@UK" <H...@UK.dca1.giganews.com> wrote:

> The website of my local newspaper at
> http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/ has become so 'ad-infested' that
> it is 'painful' to visit.
>
> I have Adblock Plus installed, but it seems ineffective for dealing
> with all the irritating 'nonsense' on the site (or perhaps I'm not
> using Adblock Plus properly?).
>
> Any suggestions for making the site more bearable?

You can hide them with some CSS. Using the Stylish extension makes it
easier. With Stylish, add the style

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);
@-moz-document domain("www.leicestermercury.co.uk") {
div.section { display : none ! important }
}

Stylish is at <https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/stylish/>.

[Herb@UK]

Sounds good, thanks.

Somewhat confusingly, when I try and install it from
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/ublockfirefox/ a warning
pops up saying "This site (addons.mozilla.org) attempted to install a
theme". Haven't seen this before. Is it normal? Why does the add-on try
and install a theme?

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[Herb@UK]

Interesting, thank you.

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[WaltS48]

Because that is a theme, and not the one you are looking for which can
be found here;

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock/>

or a more recent version here;

<https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/releases>

--
Kubuntu 14.10 | KDE 4.14.1 | Thunderbird 38.0a2(Earlybird)
[Coexist - Understanding Across Divides](https://www.coexist.org/)
Proofreader wanted - apply online. ;)

[Herb@UK]

Ah, so it is in fact µBlock, thank you :-)

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[CRNG]

On Wed, 11 Mar 2015 12:36:59 +0100, PietB <opt...@opt-in.invalid>
wrote in
<mailman.158.1426073896...@lists.mozilla.org>

The only ads I see there with ABP active are five "voucher deals".
--
Web based forums are like subscribing to 10 different newspapers
and having to visit 10 different news stands to pickup each one.
Email list-server groups and USENET are like having all of those
newspapers delivered to your door every morning.

[PietB]

Herb@UK wrote:
> Glad you are enjoying the Leicester Mercury online experience...

I'm not. I just visited the site once because of your posting.

> I wasn't aware of Ghostery before.

Well, then you're now. Great privacy protecting stuff.

> Do I detect a hint of sarcasm in your 'impressive' comment? :-)

Sort of: it's the first site I vivit that shows such a high
Ghostery score. Enough reason for not visiting it again.

-p

[James Moe]

On 03/11/2015 04:21 AM, Herb@UK wrote:
> The website of my local newspaper at http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/
> has become so 'ad-infested' that it is 'painful' to visit.
>

> Any suggestions for making the site more bearable?
>

I use Ghostery and NoScript to block most of the ads and unwanted clutter.
That said, NoScript is becoming more of a burden these days because
sites have become so dependent on secondary service and portal sites to
deliver content and code. (With NoScript installed, check out all of the
sites attached to huffingtonpost.com, for instance.) Still, blocking the
main ones, doubleclick.net, ads.google.com, etc., reduce the clutter by
quite a bit.

--
James Moe
jmm-list at sohnen-moe dot com

[CRPence]

On 11-Mar-2015 06:21 -0500, Herb@UK wrote:
> The website of my local newspaper at http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/
> has become so 'ad-infested' that it is 'painful' to visit.
>
> I have Adblock Plus installed, but it seems ineffective for dealing with
> all the irritating 'nonsense' on the site (or perhaps I'm not using
> Adblock Plus properly?).
>
> Any suggestions for making the site more bearable?
>

I am not sure about the site being described as /ad-infested/, but
the pages did seem to me to take a significant amount of time to load
while continuously contacting [and downloading content from?] various
other sites; loading so slowly, that I eventually asked Fx to stop each
page from loading any more. With ABPlus activated using the EasyList,
EasyPrivacy, and Fanboy's Annoyance subscriptions [plus a few of my own
custom site filters], those same pages load quickly; albeit presented
with some very mundane and inoffensive advertising, showing both the
/CLASSIFIEDS/ and /VOUCHER DEALS/ aligned under /MORE NEWS HEADLINES/ on
the right side of the page, despite having the check-box for "Allow some
non-intrusive advertising" unchecked in my Filter Preferences. FWiW: My
custom filters are likely mostly effective duplicates of some filters
within the subscriptions, but mine are defined as site-wide filters
rather than as selective of portions of sites.

[rebro]

Thank you for this illuminating suggestion. Opening
<http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Van-causes-early-morning-traffic-chaos-Leicester/story-26152329-detail/story.html>
seemed to be inconspicuous before I disabled NoScript in order to watch
the embedded photo/video material. As a consequence ABP was not able to
block all advertising elements any longer. Additionally "Disconnect"
pointed to 10 tracking requests in 'Advertising', 7 requests in
'Analytics' and 17 requests re 'Content' which were all blocked.

[EE]

There are classified ads in the right column, but I took those to be
part of the newspaper, since the prices are all in pounds, and I use
dollars here.

[EE]

On that particular page (about the van causing traffic jams), Disconnect
is blocking 19 items.

[John McGaw]

I'm not seeing anything untoward on the home page or on the URL you
provided. There are the classified ads of course and then there are some
'recommended offers' but neither of those seem overly intrusive. Are either
of these the source of your complaint? I'm running NoScript and ABE here.

[Nobody]

On Wed, 11 Mar 2015 11:33:25 -0500, CRNG <noe...@atthisdomain.gov>
wrote:

>On Wed, 11 Mar 2015 12:36:59 +0100, PietB <opt...@opt-in.invalid>
>wrote in
><mailman.158.1426073896...@lists.mozilla.org>
>
>>Herb@UK wrote:
>>> The website of my local newspaper at http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/
>>> has become so 'ad-infested' that it is 'painful' to visit.
>>> I have Adblock Plus installed, but it seems ineffective for dealing with
>>> all the irritating 'nonsense' on the site (or perhaps I'm not using
>>> Adblock Plus properly?).
>>> Any suggestions for making the site more bearable?
>>
>>I do see some ads there, despite ABP, but it's far from unbearable.
>>But I also see Ghostery blocking 21 trackers, which is impressive.
>>
>>-p
>
>The only ads I see there with ABP active are five "voucher deals".

Ditto

[Nobody]

Voucher Deals, only... same as homepage

[Morgana]

On 11-Mar-2015 07:21, Herb@UK wrote:
> The website of my local newspaper at http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/
> has become so 'ad-infested' that it is 'painful' to visit.
>
> I have Adblock Plus installed, but it seems ineffective for dealing with
> all the irritating 'nonsense' on the site (or perhaps I'm not using
> Adblock Plus properly?).
>
> Any suggestions for making the site more bearable?
>
> Thank you.
>

Add this add-on:

https://adblockplus.org/en/elemhidehelper

[B00ze/Empire]

On 2015-03-11 07:21, Herb@UK <H...@UK.dca1.giganews.com> wrote:

> The website of my local newspaper at http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/
> has become so 'ad-infested' that it is 'painful' to visit.
>
> I have Adblock Plus installed, but it seems ineffective for dealing with
> all the irritating 'nonsense' on the site (or perhaps I'm not using
> Adblock Plus properly?).
>
> Any suggestions for making the site more bearable?
>
> Thank you.

Looks just fine to me. There are Classified and Voucher Deals on the
right, but that's it. I don't use ABP, but I do have NoScript and
Ghostery, which blocks all script-based ads...

Best Regards,

--
! _\|/_ Sylvain / B00...@hotmail.com
! (o o) Member-+-David-Suzuki-Foundation/EFF/Planetary-Society-+-
oO-( )-Oo Come in, Beverly, I'll show you a REAL Picard maneuver.

[The Real Bev]

I just see Classifieds and Voucher Deals in the right-hand column. I
wouldn't have even noticed those because I automatically tune stuff like
that out.


--
Cheers, Bev
"If you're crazy, you better find a way to make money off it.
Otherwise they will lock you up" -- Hunter S. Thompson

[Herb@UK]

On 11.03.2015 16:57 UK Time, PietB wrote:

>> I wasn't aware of Ghostery before.
>
> Well, then you're now. Great privacy protecting stuff.

Yes, thanks again for pointing it out.

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[Herb@UK]

Thanks for your feedback.

I too had found NoScript more of a burden than a benefit, which is why I
disabled it some time ago.

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[Herb@UK]

Thanks for your feedback.

Before I installed 湎lock I was seeing (and hearing!) all sorts of
unwanted stuff on the Leicester Mercury site.

湎lock appears to have provided a 'miracle cure' 8-)

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[Herb@UK]

Thanks for your feedback and all the other feedback this thread.

With NoScript disabled, µBlock seems to have resolved the situation for me.

One aspect I hadn't mentioned before is that it wasn't just the unwanted
stuff I was seeing/hearing on that site, whatever is running on the site
also used to crank up the CPU load to excessive/unacceptable levels, so
that the browser regularly ground to a halt when I had several Leicester
Mercury tabs open.

Looks like this irritating behaviour is a thing of the past with µBlock 8-)

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[Herb@UK]

On 11.03.2015 14:23 UK Time, Peter wrote:

> On 3/11/2015 7:21 AM, Herb@UK wrote:
>> The website of my local newspaper at
>> http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/ has become so 'ad-infested' that
>> it is 'painful' to visit.
>>
>> I have Adblock Plus installed, but it seems ineffective for dealing
>> with all the irritating 'nonsense' on the site (or perhaps I'm not
>> using Adblock Plus properly?).
>>
>> Any suggestions for making the site more bearable?
>>

>> Thank you.
>>
>
> I recently switched from Adblock Plus to uBlock 0.8.8.2 which I find to
> be at least as effective at blocking clutter as ABP, plus it seems to
> enable a much faster page load/display. Give it a try. You don't even
> have to uninstall ABP, just disable it while you try uBlock.

Thanks again for the µBlock recommendation. It feels like a 'godsend'
for the Leicester Mercury site :-)

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[Herb@UK]

Thanks for your reply. It turns out had I already had this add-on
installed, but I had kind of forgotten about it!

Meanwhile, it seems that µBlock does the trick without the need for
manual element hiding...

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[Christian Riechers]

On 03/12/2015 09:07 AM, Herb@UK wrote:
> On 11.03.2015 19:50 UK Time, John McGaw wrote:
>> On 3/11/2015 10:04 AM, Herb@UK wrote:
>>> On 11.03.2015 13:57 UK Time, Herb@UK wrote:
>>>> On 11.03.2015 11:36 UK Time, PietB wrote:
>>>>> Herb@UK wrote:
>>>>>> The website of my local newspaper at
>>>>>> http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/
>>>>>> has become so 'ad-infested' that it is 'painful' to visit.
>>>>>> I have Adblock Plus installed, but it seems ineffective for dealing
>>>>>> with all the irritating 'nonsense' on the site (or perhaps
>>>>>> I'm not using Adblock Plus properly?).
>>>>>> Any suggestions for making the site more bearable?
>>>>>
>>>>> I do see some ads there, despite ABP, but it's far from unbearable.
>>>>> But I also see Ghostery blocking 21 trackers, which is impressive.
>>>>
>>>> Hi Piet

<snip>

>>> PS: The Leicester Mercury homepage isn't too bad, but have a look at an
>>> individual article, e.g.
>>> http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Van-causes-early-morning-traffic-chaos-Leicester/story-26152329-detail/story.html

<snip>

>> I'm not seeing anything untoward on the home page or on the URL you
>> provided. There are the classified ads of course and then there are some
>> 'recommended offers' but neither of those seem overly intrusive. Are
>> either of these the source of your complaint? I'm running NoScript and
>> ABE here.
>
> Thanks for your feedback and all the other feedback this thread.
>
> With NoScript disabled, µBlock seems to have resolved the situation for me.
>
> One aspect I hadn't mentioned before is that it wasn't just the unwanted
> stuff I was seeing/hearing on that site, whatever is running on the site
> also used to crank up the CPU load to excessive/unacceptable levels, so
> that the browser regularly ground to a halt when I had several Leicester
> Mercury tabs open.
>
> Looks like this irritating behaviour is a thing of the past with µBlock 8-)

It sounds pretty stupid to me to disable NoScript. Why would you want to
do this?
Also, Ghostscript isn't needed as long as you run AdblockPlus with the
right filter subscription.

I haven't heard about µBlock before but I doubt it can do anything which
AdblockPlus can't. And it has only been preliminarily reviewed by Mozilla.

--
Christian

[Frank]

That's the way it looks to me.
Far better than my local paper on line.

[Herb@UK]

On 16.03.2015 21:03 UK Time, Christian Riechers wrote:

>>
>> Looks like this irritating behaviour is a thing of the past with µBlock 8-)
>
> It sounds pretty stupid to me to disable NoScript. Why would you want to
> do this?

Not sure about "stupid". As I said, like James Moe I too had found that
NoScript had become more of a burden than a benefit, which is why I
disabled it some time ago. I can't remember the exact details. If I
remember, you'll be the first to know.

In any case, the Leicester Mercury site works perfectly for me now,
thanks to µBlock.

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[Chuck Anderson]

Herb@UK wrote:
> On 16.03.2015 21:03 UK Time, Christian Riechers wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Looks like this irritating behaviour is a thing of the past with
>>> µBlock 8-)
>>
>> It sounds pretty stupid to me to disable NoScript. Why would you want to
>> do this?
>
> Not sure about "stupid". As I said, like James Moe I too had found that
> NoScript had become more of a burden than a benefit, which is why I
> disabled it some time ago. I can't remember the exact details. If I
> remember, you'll be the first to know.

Same here. Years ago. Too many sites that would not load properly - or
were missing functionality I was, or was not aware of. I opted instead
for YesScript. When I find a site's Javascript annoying (page keeps
changing layout, new ads keep popping up or are just too numerous to
avoid mousing over) I click on the YesScript icon and put it on the
blacklist.

>
> In any case, the Leicester Mercury site works perfectly for me now,
> thanks to µBlock.
>


--

*****************************
Chuck Anderson • Boulder, CO
http://cycletourist.com
Turn Off, Tune Out, Drop In
*****************************

[lebl....@gmail.com]

get ad block plus

[king-daddy]

On 7/31/2015 4:38 PM, lebl....@gmail.com wrote:
> get ad block plus
>

I agree... and like it, but I am finding it blocks some web page function related to streaming TV programs and services
like Netflix.

The disappointing aspect of that ... is regarding the "disable" button for the ad-on. It is not good enough to solve
the issue. I must remove extension.

....or run the streaming with MSIE or a browser without ad-blocking function.

In the case of the Time Warner News / Weather channel, it is the PAGE that manages subscriber authorization. The
"Login" layer is blocked.

Carl

[Graham P Davis]

On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 22:44:58 -0400
king-daddy <king-...@earthlink.net> wrote:

> On 7/31/2015 4:38 PM, lebl....@gmail.com wrote:
> > get ad block plus
> >
>
> I agree... and like it, but I am finding it blocks some web page
> function related to streaming TV programs and services like Netflix.
>
> The disappointing aspect of that ... is regarding the "disable"
> button for the ad-on. It is not good enough to solve the issue. I
> must remove extension.

"Disable" worked fine for me on Netflix and other similar sites. Did you
disable for the whole site or just the one page?

>
> ....or run the streaming with MSIE or a browser without ad-blocking
> function.

You can also add an app to tell the site that you are running MSIE on
Windows when you're actually running FF on Linux. The one I'm using on
this machine is "User Agent Switcher".

>
> In the case of the Time Warner News / Weather channel, it is the PAGE
> that manages subscriber authorization. The "Login" layer is blocked.
>

As I'm in UK, I'm not sure it's even worth me trying that one.
Sorry.

--
Graham Davis, UK
User of Mozillarish stuff since Netscape 1.2N.
Running on KDE 4.14.9, openSUSE 13.2.