Who sets the advertising for HW? I am getting ads for Adult Entertainment sites!

Tud, I have been running AdBlock on Windows for almost 10 years and I find it about 90% effective at blocking trash, as a recent Mac convert I have been running it for about three years and it runs flawlessly.

It's been working swell for me.

This isn't an ad for Ghostery (anyway, it's free and there may be similar programs out there which might do the same thing), but I want to further explain Ghostery a bit and why I use it in addition to AdBlock. AdBlock prevents the desplay of ads on your browser page. But Ghostery prevents all the data gathering and tracking cookies that enable companies to monitor you and send you ads in the first place. And since it blocks the data gathering, it also inhibits much other data aggregation, mining, and identity matching activity that goes on all around us. So depending on how you feel about being tracked and targeted, Ghostery can add, a big layer of protection you don't get by simply blocking the display of ads.

I'm chagrined to admit that I worked for a couple of years for a company that sold data marketing services - back in the dark ages of 2005 - 06 when most of the business still consisted of direct mail campaigns and the emerging business of retail rewards programs. I was shocked then to learn how much information was out there being sold about us as demographic groups and increasingly, even then, as individuals. And what we were doing then ain't nothing compared to what goes on now.

None of this is new in principle - since it's beginnings the purpose of network television was to sell us (the product) to the networks' customers (their advertisers). But now there are massive banks of computers out there every night merging, purging, matching, and offering for sale information about us, as identified individuals -- not just a demographically profiled audience. None of us can stop it. I'm sure there are many who wan't to be offered things directly appeal to their interests. But I personally prefer not being tracked, packaged, and sold every time I go online or buy a bottle of aspirins.

I downloaded that Ghostery program and now I get noones ads or popups. It works great.

 

Terry