It does exactly what it says on the tin (AdSubtract)

Member Name: jamescridland

Product:	AdSubtract
Date:	12/10/01 (146 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Removes ad banners faultlessly, Gives control over cookies

Disadvantages: Will put a favourite website of yours out of business one day

Obviously, AdSubtract doesn't come with a tin. It's software. But if it came with a tin, which it doesn't, it would do exactly what it says on the tin, even though since there's no tin this is a fairly academic thought, and moderately pointless.

Shall we start again?

AdSubtract CE (which I use) is the cookie edition of AdSubtract. You'll probably already know what AdSubtract does, but you might not know how well it does it. So. Let's show you. Today, I've been surfing the web for about two hours, and it reckons it's removed 567 ad banners. Good thing? Well, kind of. More on that below.

CE also lets you control and delete cookies. You can block cookies from particular sites if you like, delete all cookies except the ones you trust, and also delete your internet cache too.

It works as a proxy server for your browser, so all your internet traffic gets put through it to remove the ads.

Now, for the bad news.
Bad news 1: AdSubtract seems to slow down my browsing slightly (but then, I'm on ADSL, so slowing my browsing down slightly still means it's very quick). It does make it a slightly more pleasurable experience, particularly with sites which have huge adverts blocking much of what you want to see.
Bad news 2: Sometimes it breaks sites, particularly my bank, but switching it off is just a case of right-clicking the icon in the task bar so no major problems there.
Bad news 3: By using this product, or others like it, you are actively putting sites out of business.

Why is AdSubtract a bad thing?
Companies like dooyoo depend, up to a point, on advertising. It's not their only revenue stream, but it forms a major part, and dooyoo (like many sites) may get paid per IMPRESSION, not per click. If you surf 20 pages on dooyoo, you might earn them about 50p. But if you don't allow the ads to show by using AdSubtract, then you actually just cost them money in band
width.

Now, true, a lost 50p won't kill dooyoo - but if 50% of people used this software, it would mean that the amount of money sites like dooyoo earn from advertising would halve: or worse, depending whether the reduced number of available impressions means that advertisers won't touch sites anyway.

That's not stopping me from using AdSubtract, but it's certainly worth bearing in mind. It could well be said that you're stealing from sites by not allowing their advertising to appear.

But, if you want ads to disappear from your screen, it's just what the doctor ordered. Except obviously you haven't got a doctor who'll order this for you anyway, and even if you did, chances are it wouldn't be available under the NHS. So, it kind of isn't what the doctor ordered at all, but if it was the kind of thing that doctors would order, and if removal of ads would benefit your health, then this would be just the kind of thing that doctors would order, except they wouldn't in real life because doctors don't order this kind of thing.

Shall we start again?

Summary: