Mini-HOWTO: Ad-free Web Browsing with Mozilla Firefox and the AdBlock Plus plugin
Mozilla's Firefox web browser is fast, secure, fully customizable web browser that features tabbed browsing, virus/spyware/popup blocking and privacy controls, among other things. For those who are technically inclined the choice is very obvious: Firefox is the best browser out there right now. Still, for those who are not, installing a new program on your computer can be a bit of a daunting task. This tutorial is aimed at beginners who want to install Firefox on the Microsoft Windows operating system and will also cover installing and configuring the AdBlock Plus plugin for Firefox.
Step 1 - Installing Firefox:
Before you can install the Mozilla Firefox web browser you will need to download Firefox's installation file. Save the .exe file to your hard drive and remember where you saved it. Now go to wherever you've saved the .exe file and run the file to begin the installation. After clicking on the .exe file you should see the following screen. Make sure to exit other programs first and then press "Next".
Now read through the licensing agreement to make sure it doesn't state that you now owe your soul to the devil and select "I agree to the terms of the License Agreement" and press "Next".
Now select "Standard" and press "Next" again.
Now review the installation summary and if everything looks okay to you press "Next" to begin the install.
That's it! Congratulations the install was complete and you may now press "Finish".
Step 2 - Installing the AdBlock Plus plugin:
Adblock is a content filtering plugin for the Mozilla and Firefox browsers. Adblock allows the user to specify filters, which remove unwanted content based on its source-address. To install it just use Firefox to visit the AdBlock page on addons.mozilla.org and click "Install Now" and you should then see a window such as this one:
Click "Install Now" again and then close Mozilla Firefox and start it again. Now in Firefox go to TOOLS > EXTENSIONS and you should see AdBlock listed as one of your extensions.
Step 2 - Configuring the AdBlock Plus plugin with a block list:
Right click on the AdBlock Plus extension in your extensions window and choose "Options" to configure AdBlock.
(Note: If you like, you can configure your own rules based on your needs and stop the tutorial here. If you prefer however, you may wish to continue to follow this tutorial to learn how to use a remote set of rules to block most advertisements.)
To configure AdBlock Plus to work with a remote set of rules click on "AdBlock Options" and then choose "Syncronize Path". A small window will pop up where you can enter a URL to a remote set of rules. If you like, you may wish to use ours at http://www.websightdesigns.com/adblock.txt. If you also make sure that "Automatically Syncronize" is checked then AdBlock will overwrite your rules with whatever is located in our rules so that if we make any changes or additions you will stay up to date.
Notes - Creating your own AdBlock rules:
You can create your own optimized rules in regular expressions using the AdBlock Rule Optimizer.
Happy browsing!