I hate adverts with a rage that burns hotter than the fires of hell. I hate them because most people don't understand the importance of them. They see them, ignore them (or so they think) and that's that. They will happily sit through bouts of three minutes of TV ads, attentively listening and watching everyone like puppets being played by the big corporations. Of course, ask one of these people why they watch adverts and they will tell you "They're just adverts, it's not like I listen to them". Foolish are they. Also I hate them because simply, I don't want to see them and should not have to see them if I don't want too.

Anyway, reasons aside, here is how I create a near Ad Free world:

1. Internet Adverts, these evil spawn are thankfully mostly eradicated via Firefox coupled up with the Adblock Extention and theAdblock Updater Extention. This is in my opinion one of the most advantageous reasons to use Firefox.

2. TV Adverts, this one is a little trickier/costlier. Basically you have two paths, one is to mute the TV and look away when the adverts come on which works fine but is somewhat impractical. The other is to by or build some kind of PVR (Personal Video Recorder) and get into the habbit of never watching live TV again, simply set it up to record what you want and watch it when you want. If you do your research right you'll have a box that allows you to skip adverts or if like me you are more technically minded and just happen to have a spare computer lying around, build your own using MythTV.

3. Radio adverts, this ones simple. Don't listen to the radio. Why on earth would you want to in this day and age? Grab a hard drive music player, shove loads of songs on it and have it set to random. Instant radio without the mindless chatter.

4. Junk Mail, this is obvious but learn to look for the signs so you can throw it away before even opening it. Often it will be addressed "to the occupier" or something similar. Otherwise open, to be sure and throw away quickly (after dancing on it).

5. Phone calls. I love getting these. Either just hang up with no reply (very satisfying), hang up after saying "No thanks" or have a little fun such as try to sell them something you have knocking around the house you were thinking of getting rid of, or start talking about the weather or currently politics. Ensure that you don't let them change the conversation, they will try so hard to do this. Eventually they will hang up, fun fun fun. The same tactics apply to those people in the street collecting research or trying to sign you up to something, totally ignore them. Have a bit of fun with them or just politely say "No thanks" and walk on.

6. Billboards, these are by far the most invasive unwelcome adverts that are a plain breech of human rights IMO. I don't want to be forced to look at them yet have no say so in the matter. These things you can't really avoid. They are so big that no trick I have found really works for them. The best thing to do is to recognise the shape of it via your peripheral vision and focus on something else till the scum has passed. Of course, starting a vigilante group that set's alight or defaces these things with paint or ink would be also be a good idea The same tactics of ignore and look at something else are to be used in similar adverts found in shops and around town.

There you have it, this covers most types of advertisements. I hope it serves as some use to you as you fight the advertisements, Go forth and be ignorant!



2 Comments

Dugahole Location: Ballarat, Victoria, Australia Joined: 27/03/05	You started advertising an Ad-free world and I stopped reading

Chris Location: West Midlands, UK Joined: 24/03/05	Heh, true however I perhaps should have stated I'm only against adverts that are provided by big companies that just trying to sell their product. If someone was advertising say free software, it's in my best interests to check out what they have on offer.

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