I have a confession to make: I've been stealing from Google. With $1.578 billion in revenue last quarter, the company is unlikely to miss the pennies I've denied it. Still, I feel I owe an explanation: I'm "adnorant," which is to say I ignore online ads.
I've been using a Firefox plugin called CustomizeGoogle to block Google ads and generally improve the search experience.
CustomizeGoogle has a lot to recommend it beyond its ad blocking abilities. My favorite feature is its placement of links to other major search engines on Google's search results pages. It lets you try your search query on Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, AllTheWeb, Teoma, MSN, Lycos, Technorati, Feedster, Bloglines, and Altavista.
There's also a very useful option that adds links back to the Internet Wayback Machine -- which hosts snapshots of Web sites taken at different times in the past -- in search results.
I can't imagine that Google is thrilled about this plugin because it undermines the company's business model. Then again, a lot of companies probably aren't thrilled with Google for that very reason.
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Google is probably pissed. |
