SOLVED IE9 RC + Simple Adblock = nearly perfection

[catilley1092]

In the past few days, I've been using both FF 4.0 Beta 12 & IE9 RC, and the cream is clearly rising to the top. Although Firefox has delivered excellent browsers through 3.6.13; their most recent release, 4.0 Beta 12, is no match for IE9 RC. In using both, I've been as unbiased as possible towards both, as I want to use the one that's best for me, and don't care about popularity.

The regulars here knows that I've been a FF user for quite some time, MS pushed off IE8 RC on me almost 2 years ago. I was a loyal IE7 user using XP, and blindly accepted MS's offer to "improve" IE, but IE8 just didn't suit XP, and had too many issues to continue using it. I would have liked to have uninstalled it, but after I did install it, SP3 was delivered to me through Auto Update, and I couldn't remove IE8 w/o a reinstall, which I didn't want to do. And because of my ignorance in the matter, I wasn't backing up my OS, so I had no recourse. Lesson learned.

One of the things that I didn't like about IE, and could never figure it out, was pop-up ads. They bug the crap out of me, not to mention it takes longer for the page to load.
A few days ago, Digerati suggested a solution to put an end to this, and I'm so thankful to him for posting it.:adore:

http://simple-adblock.com/

This is a simple addon to install, and only a couple of options has to be made, your country, and a extra option for privacy. That's it. No more ads.

As far as screen clarity and overall speed, IE9 wins again, giving you options to disable addons w/o digging through the menus, keeping things simple for everyone. The uncluttered look is also appealing to me.

The only thing that I'm concerned about is script blocking. FF has a powerful & very effective tool for this called NoScript. I'll need to learn how to do this in IE9. If there's an option for this, hopefully someone who reads this post will come forward.

If there is anything even close to the browser wars of the late '90's, mainly IE vs Netscape, this is it. MS's war that Netscape, although a very popular browser, was also a financially vulnerable company. They (Netscape) had no chance of winning that war, although it's founders didn't lay down for IE. We all know which side won.

From the looks for things, with all of the choices that we have, and I'm grateful to have a choice, a new war has begun. FF had been rapidly climbing, Chrome came in and took some of it's momentum, Opera & Safari are in a fight for last place.

For the most part, IE has been stale the last 2 years, almost appearing not to even care. IE8 was (and still is) the equivalent of Vista of IE, a heavy browser. But with IE9, that notion has been proven wrong.

The war is on.

Cat

 

[davehc]

"The only thing that I'm concerned about is script blocking. "

Perhaps you are looking for something a little more sophisticated, but, as I am sure you are aware, you can hide scripts through the advanced options, and/or disable script debugging.

 

[catilley1092]

No, actually I'm looking for something simple, just a script blocker. Mabye I don't even need it, being that I don't click onto everything that I see.

It was just that in FF, the NoScript option (an optional addon) has an icon in the lower right corner of the page, in order to execute certain actions, like delete emails, you had to at least give temporary permission to enable scripts. The same with making transactions, many sites will not allow you to do so without enabling scripting.

It's more or less a protection issue, and if there's any single app that prevents Remote Code Execution from happening, NoScript is it.

Other than that concern, I'm very happy with IE9 RC. Pages load faster than ever, no more ads. I don't even have FF installed on here, that's how confident I am in what I see. I just need to relearn the IE settings so that I'm in charge of things. When one has that confidence, and a decent AV to cover their back, along with practicing safe computing, the user is less concerned about these sort of things.

That's what it is, learning the ropes again. I'm open to that.

Cat

 

[davehc]

I used to have FF as an alternative, so that I could have more than one browser open when referring to something.
Like you, I did uninstall FF. This , when when I began to use the middle mouse key for multiple instances of IE..

 

[catilley1092]

I was digging through the Internet Options, but without knowing what I'm doing, I'm not going to make a lot of changes, usually the default is best for many.

But I did slide my "Privacy" setting to "Medium High", just as "Security" is, I don't believe that'll hurt. Plus, I checked the option to hide my physical location. I don't recall seeing that option in IE7. I'll keep tabs on things to make sure that it doesn't affect my browsing speed noticeably.

IE9 is plenty fast anyway.

Cat

 

[davehc]

Just for a LOL, Cat. I played with the IE9 options and was unable to access my Technet account!!!
I had to return everything to default. I am still going through the options one by one to see how this could possibly happen.

 

[catilley1092]

I only changed 2 options, one was to elevate my privacy to 'medium high', it was set to 'medium'. The other was to 'hide my location'. I'll have to try myself, this option may not allow logon to TechNet. I'll check that out right quick, hang on.

No problem with my settings, davehc. IE9 only displayed a notice at the bottom of the page, in regard to if I wanted to display content that didn't have a signature. I didn't elect to show it. I attemped a download, the Microsoft File Transfer Manager was installed, it began, then I cancelled it.

If I do have a problem with getting on a site, then I know what to change back. For this reason, I only make 1 or 2 changes at a time, make note of what I do change, see how things are going.

I recall the time, about 3 years ago, with IE7, I jacked my security & privacy settings to the max (at the time, I lived near the library, and between their signal, and my apartment, there was no obstacle). The reason that I did it was because I was using public ISP. But I could hardly do anything, because I over did it.

After changing my internet settings to 'medium high' (both privacy & security), and checking the option in XP's firewall 'Don't allow Exceptions', I was good.

Needless to say, it was really good to enjoy free internet for over a year. Road Runner at that. We have it here, but I'm just 2 blocks out of range. Perhaps a roof mount antenna would work?

Cat

 

[etalmar]

It was just that in FF, the NoScript option (an optional addon) has an icon in the lower right corner of the page, in order to execute certain actions, like delete emails, you had to at least give temporary permission to enable scripts. The same with making transactions, many sites will not allow you to do so without enabling scripting.

There is a lesser known add-on called YesScript, which is far less invasive and annoying than NoScript. YesScript places a small icon in the lower right corner of the Firefox browser and whenever you visit a site that looks or feels questionable to you, just click the icon once and it prevents any script from running. Click it again and it allows all scripts to be run on that page. Simple but very effective.

Of course you will have the NoScript zealots retort that YesScript doesn't employ as many preventative measures as NoScript does, and while that may be partially true, it is also not nearly as much of a severe PITA to use and configure as NoScript, so the trade-off is worth it to me. You have to decide what suits your browsing habits as well as places that you frequent to determine if YesScript offers effective enough script protection for you.

Speaking of Firefox .. version 3.6.14 was just released yesterday and works very well. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.6.14/releasenotes/

One of the things that I didn't like about IE, and could never figure it out, was pop-up ads. They bug the crap out of me, not to mention it takes longer for the page to load.
A few days ago, Digerati suggested a solution to put an end to this, and I'm so thankful to him for posting it.

http://simple-adblock.com/

This is a simple addon to install, and only a couple of options has to be made, your country, and a extra option for privacy. That's it. No more ads.Cat

Here's another ad blocker to try on Internet Explorer. It's called AdblockIE . http://adblockie.codeplex.com/

Project Description
AdblockIE is an ad blocker for Internet Explorer, inspired by Firefox's Adblock and Noscript (as well as Safari's PithHelmet and IE7Pro).

AdblockIE is designed for and works with IE8. AdblockIE blocks JavaScript (offsite and embedded) and filters images, Flash, and frames.

 

[catilley1092]

Thanks etalmar, I'll try them out on my notebook. The 'Simple Adblock' works well on my desktop so far, I'll leave that as is.

It's good to see some solutions coming forward towards ad blocking in IE. While there's always the chance you may miss out on a good deal through ads, for the most part, it's deals that's too good to be true.

Like the Free MacBook ads. About three years ago, I clicked onto one of them, and started going through the motions of getting it. However, they want you to apply for credit everywhere, really, how does one know if the provided links are leading your personal info into the wrong hands?

For this reason, as well as the chance of getting really nasty viruses, malware, and who knows what else, I just prefer to skip the ads.

Cat