Block Ads in IE8 with Built-In InPrivate Filtering


Create an XML file somewhere (on your desktop is good). The contents should be like the following:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<rss version=”2.0″ xmlns:wf=”http://www.microsoft.com/schemas/webfilter/2008“>
<channel>
<title>blocker</title>
<description>Export of InPrivate Filtering</description>
<item>
<description>MSN Advertisements</description>
<wf:blockRegex><![CDATA[.*ads.*\.msn\.com.*]]></wf:blockRegex>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>

Replace the parts in bold with your own text. The description doesn’t really matter, though. Just remember to add “\” in front of a “.” and add a “.” in front of an “*”. Save the XML file.

Then, open the Manage Add-ons option in the Tools menu. In the Manage Add-ons screen, click InPrivate Filtering. Then click Import and load the XML file you saved.

The example XML above will block Microsoft’s own ads in Windows Live Mail… I tried that just as an example :). Would be very useful to block annoying ads and contents you just don’t want to see.

Maybe someone can create an add-on that can use this format to turn InPrivate Filtering into an ad-blocker.

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Reader Comments

Has someone created a regular adblocker for IE 8 or do I really need to make a list as stated above? If so, I will stay with my Firefox and tell my clients to stay with it as well… I hate ads!

There’s option to have someone host the list file and have everyone else to subscribe to it. That way the list will always be up to date (as per the person who maintain it).

BTW, I tried this, but I had trouble with places where they host the ads files in a directory instead of another domain.
Such as “www.msn.com/ads/” instead of “ads.msn.com”. Any idea about this ?

Sorry, no idea. In fact, I got bored with IE8 (I just hate the whole thing with all the “slices” etc…) and Vista, formatted my PC back to Windows XP, and just use IE7 I for work (although I can use Firefox for work) so I don’t have to worry about any ads. The reason is that I use IE7Pro plugin and I loved the mouse gestures, text saver, and ad blocker etc. Sadly, IE7Pro does not work properly in IE8 so IE7 is the best right now.

For everything else, there’s Firefox (and all those extensions…).

Still, I love Opera the most and my Firefox + extensions try to mimic Opera as much as I can, only better (Fast Dial and Foxmarks). Since now I know how to make Opera show more Speed Dial, the only thing now is Foxmarks. Or maybe if someone would revive BookmarkBridge to work with the new Firefox bookmarks, I’ll be back in Opera in a jiffy.

After all these years, Microsoft still doesn’t get it. Neither does Firefox (with its stupid slow startup time). If only Opera is the standard. Now, that’s a REAL browser!

Internet Explorer 8 is very good because it is as stable as Opera. I hate the previous versions of IE like IE6 because it hangs frequently. “



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