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Filtering Out Ads in RSS feeds using Mozilla Firefox Extensions
It recently came out that Google is messing around with a system of putting Google Ads in RSS feeds. Also others have been adding ads to syndication feeds. While I understand the need to for website authors to turn a profit this does seem to potentially commercialize the awesome syndication features of RSS. So I thought I would share my little tutorial on how I am going to be filtering out ads in the RSS feeds that I read.
First of all my favorite RSS reader is the Mozilla Firefox extension Sage. It renderes RSS feeds into a convent reader in the sidebar.
Then just use the Firefox extension Adblock to filter out the mini banner ads that they are inserting into the RSS feed. Remember to use an asterisk to filter out all ads on the ad server.
I know professional writers deserve compensation for their hard work but I am not sure that inserting banner ads in every last place on the web is really a good idea.
Jake at April 27, 2005 
WebDev
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Comments
Jake,
I created a Camtasia movie about installing Adblock that people may also find useful. It's a 6.5 Mb Flash movie, so be forewarned. And it was created last fall, so the screen shots may be a little outdated.
http://staff.washington.edu/hlove/posts/adblock/.
Cheers,
Harry
Posted by: Harry at April 28, 2005 8:05 AM
Super cool I'll have to check that out.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 28, 2005 10:34 AM
Gee, we wouldn't want to commercialize this awesome feature. Then people might make money from it, and that would be bad... why? We already have corporations creating fake blogs to promote their products. Why would explicit advertisements be any more "commercial"?
Posted by: Mr. Falcon at April 28, 2005 1:35 PM
There should be some reasonable limits to the reach of the ad merchant.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 28, 2005 3:52 PM
I noticed you're not utilizing the REGEX feature of AdBlock
for google ads all you need to put is something like ; *.googlesyndication.com/* ('*' being a wildcard)
Posted by: b at May 5, 2005 9:07 PM
I too am a big fan of AdBlock, and I have found that you can't get the most out of the extension until you use a truly extensive set of filters from somebody else. Just google adblock filters and you'll find a lot. The following is the one I use:
Posted by: Riley at May 9, 2005 6:40 PM
Oh I have been using the REGEX feature just not in that screen shot.
Adblock is one of those extentions that keeps me from using Apple Safari.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at May 9, 2005 10:14 PM
