Do you use ad blocking software?

To those who are tempted to vote option #2 ... perhaps you'd rather want to try it and vote when you made up your mind.

I installed the adblock plugin about a month ago ... I don't ever want to use a browser without such a feature.

BTW: One wonders why the owners of the archives insist on placing these ads here ... no user ever intentionally clicks them, the only effect they might have is that PCs of careless users are infected with mal/adware. 

BTW: If you want to try it but don't know how ... just download Mozilla Firefox and adblock. With adblock installed all you need to do is open a page which contains ads ... if the page contains ads you right-click them and you will be offered an option to block them. Advanced users can even use wildcards and ban entire domains, which is what I would recommend.

Well, I've just installed adblock into my Firefox and it seems to work okay. I was a bit wary about a comment from someone who had to uninstall it when it crashed his ebay pages, but it seems okay.
It won't block those annoying talking smileys though (as far as I can see).

chopper wrote: Well, I've just installed adblock into my Firefox and it seems to work okay. I was a bit wary about a comment from someone who had to uninstall it when it crashed his ebay pages, but it seems okay. It won't block those annoying talking smileys though (as far as I can see).

Just right-click them and there should be a menu option to block the image.

I get the block option on some ads but not on others. It seems to be the Flash ones that I can't block.

I tried the wildcards and ended up losing non-ads in a lot of cases.  I think I'll try Krusty's link.

chopper wrote: I get the block option on some ads but not on others. It seems to be the Flash ones that I can't block.

Try the "list all blockable elements" feature. Usually flash ads are invoked by scripts, which are blockable elements. You just can't right-click them in the browser, because the Flash plugin implements its own context menu.

Beside other purposes, I regularly block pictures many of guys here keep in their signatures.

chopper wrote: I get the block option on some ads but not on others. It seems to be the Flash ones that I can't block.

Alan, I think Firefox has a separate Flashblock extension.  Myself, I only use adblock with filterset.G - guess I don't get bothered by too much flash.