Ok, are these double-underlined link ads all over the place now or is it just me?

Anyone know of any way(s) to block this crap in Safari?

I've never seen what you're describing. I use firefox with Adblock plus, which may be a factor. Or maybe I just don't surf the same places you do.

They are a pain. In FF, Adblock Plus can filter them. I remember adding only one site to kill to kill them all. Least wise for the sites I visit regularly. Sorry, don't remember which that was.

Tony, AdBlock Plus kills them. Tom's Guide (from Tom's Hardware_ definitely has them:

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/macbookpro-apple-refresh-opinion,review-1513.html

The main Tom's Hardware site also has them.

I ended up on that site last week performing some search. I don't actually normally visit it or any other site with those ads. But they're annoying nonetheless.

If you block your browser from loading the Javascript from the kontera.com domain that does those ads then they'll disappear completely. No idea what blocking extensions/addons you have available in Safari.

Safari doesn't have a feature that allows selectively blocking anything, including Javascript. Apart from a nice interface and a good engine, Safari doesn't have much of anything...

Hmm. Put it into your hosts file maybe?

I don't see them in Safari. Running GimmerBlock here, so it must be catching them.

Thanks Tom. I was thinking of using GlimmerBlocker last week. Thought I bookmarked it, but I must have forgotten about it. Safari Adblock, which is what I'm using now, sucks.

It turns out I had actually downloaded it already and had forgotten to install it. Doh...

Unfortunately since it's a system-wide proxy (and not Safari-specific), I'm going to have to do a bunch more work to try and get it working the way I need it to. I have been using LittleSnitch for years (a filter-based outgoing firewall). Letting GlimmerBlocker freely access connections means that any other application can also access those connections unfettered.

I've stumbled upon what claims to be a work-around which I'll read in the morning.

Maybe not, I ran across this today. I shows how to block a site with nothing but a hosts file entry.

The link's about windows but it should work the same on any OS.

PS. Hey guys. Are there any drawbacks to using the massive hosts file listed on the site I mentioned.

I once tried doing the thing where you block entire swaths of domains using a hosts file, yes. The drawback is that sometimes, some domains that host ads will also occasionally host content you need. Akamai, for example, was one of them.

So I found that it was much better to just surf with Firefox and Adblock Plus, and not deal with the hosts file. Accomplished the same task without the "false positive" behavior. Also, easier to turn off when I need to.

That is because Akamai is a content delivery network and hosts files for many diverse companies which include ad companies. If you blocked them then you'd be unable to download things like Apple updates.

The exact Akamai server you use depends on where you are, what company you're trying to access and what type of content it is so it is difficult to block individual content.

Somewhat relevant:
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/201...es-you-love.ars

I don't regularly read ARS. And frankly, after that post, I'm glad. Especially so after hearing about their experiment.

I'm inclined to agree with the recent comments of John Gruber on the subject. The summary of which is, come up with a better advertising model/format.

Personally, I don't block ads to deprive sites of revenue. I do it to get rid of annoyances on the page. If the ads aren't obnoxious and annoying, I have no problem with leaving them in place.

I found that post from ARS to be just too much over the condescending and asinine line. It really left me with no sympathy for them at all. In fact it left me with these words in my mind, "fuck off and die."

That nailed part of what I was having trouble putting into words. Combine that with the whole tracking/targeting thing, where they think they can serve ads that might tempt me. You would think that the absolute total lack of click thru would give them a clue that maybe it wasn't working.

Tom, thanks again for mentioning GlimmerBlocker. I employed the work-around hat night to get it to place nice with Little Snitch and it's been working great.

I've manually made some tweaks to a few sites using the CSS substitution to get rid of excessively long footers and other detractions. I've also used its javascript-based transformation ability to do a simple string replace on all html pages from Monoprice. Now all links are set to open in the same window instead of spawning a new window. That drove me nuts on that site. Just replaced target="_blank" with target="_self"