Custom Style Sheets v's Adblocking

-- warning rant!

[SuzyUK]

I know it's been said before, and I know there are many many addons out there, but I just wanted to share a "real-life" kind of thing

so DS (darling son) has discovered the wonders of online games/comps at last. There's a comp running just now on Disney Channel and he's playing. Now he knows how to search better than DH (other half) but I know only too well that even an innocent search on <insert well known character here> will bring up those "in your face" unwanted ads.. so I searched while he was in the bath, sure enough pretty site with lots of info on <disney character> but hang on .. what's that in the right sidebar? <pr0n videos!> so adblock to work before he gets to it, block... block.. block.. no use another one keeps appearing

So what next.. ackk you know Claire you can block the whole sidebar, yep but they've still got the nav/archives in there, so do I care? NOPE! don't want DS navigating that site anyway so thanks to STYLISH and custom stylesheets the whole bar is blocked .. it makes me mad (I'm actually fizzing mad!) but there's more to life than ads and what the heck the site design stinks anyway - fixed height so (not bad) content is overflowing grrrrrrr - what happened to the unspoken law that said no pr0n to kids?

CSS: {display: none !important;} = better than any adblock!

[edited by: SuzyUK at 8:23 pm (utc) on May 9, 2008]

[D_Blackwell]

CSS {display: none !important;}

From SuzyUK:)) I'll be chuckling over this all weekend.

True enough though, you've got to be willing to turn to any and every weapon in the arsenal to look out for your kids. Heck, just to protect ourselves truth be told. Would hate to add up the money, time and variety of programs that I have invested in protecting my machines, files.....

[Xapti]

I'm not completely aware of the situation, perhaps? What's wrong with doing more generic ad-blocking (which gives higher false positive/blocks. There's probably some existing list like that) than a typical filterset-g or whatever.
Then perhaps the bigger question is why not use specific software which can block images/text which isn't desirable, like the "netnanny" or such?
Blocking only certain containers of a site or two is only a temporary solution for the one search though, and only for a few results though, is it not?

[swa66]

Not having a DS, I'm not into content blocking on home PCs, but on corporate networks one would typically use classification software that determines site-by-site if it's suitable for the workforce at the given time of day. Companies like websense lead the pack, but I'm sure there's others out there too. These are expensive solutions mostly used to prevent lawsuits (in countries where that's a problem) and to increase productivity (by e.g. not allowing employees to visit ww, check their private mailbox etc.)

I can't imagine with the sensitivities out there that you'd not find a product for censoring what home PCs can reach. But if DS is computer savvy he might hack it out ... so if you start the cat and mouse game be *sure* to win. And be ready with a serious punishment for evading security measures.

[thecoalman]

Then perhaps the bigger question is why not use specific software which can block images/text which isn't desirable, like the "netnanny" or such?

The problem there is you'll blocking a lot of legitimate images. This was one of my first posts here. Norton ad-blocker was blocking regular images based on the directory name alone. To be effective the filter would simply have to way over broad and anyone trying to circumvent it could do so. Realistically the only thing you could effectively filter is by domain.