Microsoft's newest browser may block ads

In other words, a "porn mode" button.

The ad blokcing system could change a lot in the way we view the web, and could lead to more sites having a membership scheme where you pay for access.

This site would be deeply affected.

Might be a violation of the Patriot Act, or Thailand's Internet Access Tracking law if a company were to allow employees to use this feature. But for personal use from home, it might be acceptable.

Noborito - I agree with you; the introduction of advertisment blocking in Microsoft's new browser could block a significant part of this site. Almost all the right-hand side of the screen has ads on in normal browsers unless systems used ad Adblock are enabled. Would certainly bring down revenue for this site, and plenty of others.

Won't affect me nor most people I know, who already run ad and popup blockers. Very easy to setup in most browsers/systems.

Mozilla is also reported to be incorporating a very similar system into their Firefox broswer in its next major release.

The program also covers other footprints, including temporary Internet files and cookies, the small data files that Web sites put on visitors’ computers to track their activities.

Who wrote this crap, that is totally incorrect, cookies are 99.99% NOT used for this purpose! The main use of cookies is holding session state, without cookies you could not login to ANYTHING including hotmail, Japantoday or gmail.

The sites may look drab

Let's stick with Firefox.

This square heads just mess up with everything. Why Microsoft let this happen? They must take care more about improving, not blocking.

Common sense: GET Firefox!

gogogo - probably talking about 3rd party cookies, which you have to set up manually to reject in IE7 and Firefox.

Mr.Ken - why is removing ads from sites messing with things? Note that Mozilla are going to mess with things too in their next release

Well all that above is hypothetical, and I am too sensitive to try this IE8 without someone, who has used it,telling me how it really is. Anyone out there?

I'll be getting the beta downloaded over the weekend so will hopefully report back early next week.

I already use adblock. Don't need to see third party ads. Adblock also tells you what other sites are using the same adsense IDs. For example, this site has 8 other adsense IDs connected to it.

Avoiding ads is a great way to ensure that you're not contributing to the Google monster.

gogogo - you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, so leave it to those of us who build sites for a living eh!

IE7 sucks anyway as does Firefox 3.

I use Firefox just because of the fact that it's more adaptable to what you need. I also use a host of other software to block unwanted sites and cookies. One in particular is Comodo Pro, which is completely free and given to single end users simply because the company that makes it hates the fact that Micro$oft and A$$le keep charging for those oh so important bitsnpieces you need to secure your machine!

You don't need cookies to view a website, and JT you had better take note that from the end of this month, you will no longer be permitted to use Adblocks on your site from Google.

Youdontknow: I build sites for a living hence my comments.

Looks like Microsoft found a way to hurt Google's main business.

majimekun - And Mozilla are doing the same, by the sounds of it.

Not really because Firefox's market share is much smaller than IE's one. Thus, it can't hurt Google's business as strongly as Microsoft could. Plus, on Firefox, you have to download a addon to do so. Only power users know about AdBlock on FF.