Rec: Ghostery Content Blocker
3 Jan 2017 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
promethia_tenk
Ghostery is like a next-level adblocker. It's an extension for your browser that can block not just visible ads, but all of the trackers and plug-ins that litter modern websites. Why would you want to do this?
1) Privacy: Pretty much every website on the internet is spying on you, often in sophisticated networks that follow you around the web. Ghostry helps shield you from these tracker networks.
2) Security: Some website plugins carry malware that can do you active harm.
3) Speed: A major portion of the data load of a lot of websites is in trackers and plugins. It's amazing how fast some of these sites load when you cut that crap out.
4) Clutter: Ghostery removes a lot of the extra cruft from websites that can distract from the content. Not just ads, but things like those social media sharing buttons, media players, and buggy, slow-loading comment sections. Now, some of these things are useful, but Ghostery lets you turn them on and off at will. Maybe you want the Facebook share buttons but not the Twitter or Linked in ones--you can do that. Maybe most of the time you just want to read a site's articles but sometimes you want to comment--you can load them only when you want to.
5) And it blocks ads too.
I actually run Ghostery and AdBlock Plus at the same time. Sometimes AdBlock picks up something that Ghostery misses.
Ghostery does take a little more active tending than something like AdBlock Plus. As I mention above, some of these plugins are things you actually want. Ghostery breaks the various trackers and plugins into categories like advertising, analytics, media players, etc., to help you figure out which. During the setup process you're also able to search for particular items if you already know you want them enabled (I rely a lot on Google services, for example, and much of the value they provide depends on them knowing that I'm doing, so I enabled their trackers out of the box).
If you're on a particular web page and something seems broken, you can click on Ghostery's drop-down menu to see what content it's blocking and selectively re-enable what you need. It looks like this:
The thing I end up needing to re-enable most often are video players. For certain page elements like comment sections, Ghostery will also leave a little ghost icon to mark what it blocked and you can click on the icon to re-enable the plugin.
Amusingly/of note, if you still use LiveJournal, you will need to enable the LiveJournal 'site analytics' plugin, as major portions of the system pages like comments, flist filtering, and many settings now seem to be tied to it. I'm not entirely sure what I think about this.
Before you install, it's also worth reading about Ghostery's business model so you can make an informed decision about whether and how you use it. Personally, it tend to put more trust in companies that are up-front about how they make their money like this.
(no subject)
Date: 8 Jan 2017 04:00 pm (UTC)Tried it, didn't like it, went back to the first one. :)
Yes, though I was feeling like everything rounded made some elements look weird, which is why I took it out.
Well, I'll see how it works. And I have now studied my LJ style in more detail than I ever have before. If I could move the link bar up above the journal title... But then I don't know if it'd be possible to have a separate bar, all the way across. MUCH COMPLICATED. ETA: Although could the links be centered? Is that easy? Have I already asked this? Do I even want that??? /o\ Ignore me.
I've been trying to figure out how to specify the background/outer rectangles so I can do things with them (like push down the sidebar, or round their corners without rounding everything), and I can't figure out what they're called.
Could also be this style. There are SO MANY MORE different parts. Changing the colours on LJ takes minutes. Here, I had to work out what all the different things were.
I'll let you know if anything's above my pay grade ; ) Like--I'll warn you that I don't think getting the icons outside the text boxes is happening. At least not anytime soon.
Oh I didn't think so. It seems a much more inherent issue than just tweaking stuff. So don't worry.
(no subject)
Date: 8 Jan 2017 04:17 pm (UTC)If you found a way to move the module box down, it would probably be as close to perfect as could be asked for.
(no subject)
Date: 8 Jan 2017 04:48 pm (UTC)1) If I show them your journal and if so
2) taking a screenshot of it for me? (LiveJournal currently interposes the nav bar between your header and the rest of your journal, like so and, not having a paid account, I am unable to remove it. I think I'd have difficulty explaining 'well, it looks like this, but take out that enormous blue thing in the middle.')
(no subject)
Date: 8 Jan 2017 04:53 pm (UTC)Sure. Give us a mo, I'll email it through.
(no subject)
Date: 8 Jan 2017 05:09 pm (UTC).userpic img {border: 2px solid #000000;}
I can't decide if I like the look of 1px or 2px better.
(no subject)
Date: 8 Jan 2017 05:14 pm (UTC)Between 1 and 2 I mean. The outlines are nice. :)
(no subject)
Date: 8 Jan 2017 04:21 pm (UTC)Lol, yes, this is why I didn't get far working with css on my own. Usually there were a few things I genuinely wanted to achieve and then I stopped being able to decide what I wanted enough to make it happen.
If you want to try it out:
.module-navlinks {text-align: center;}
(no subject)
Date: 8 Jan 2017 04:23 pm (UTC)This is why I never got round to learning coding/vid making.
If you want to try it out:
Actually it looks really nice. Thank you!