Are you sick of pop-ups, light-weight pornographic ads, and other junk that fills the sites you need to use? Do you want to prevent as much as you can for as little money as possible? Me too. Welcome to C2D’s anti-junk tutorial.

First before I go any further I would like to inform you that there are several good programs you can subscribe to that will take care of filtering the internet for you. If you can afford them I would recommend that you try them out as they will be a lot more affective in stopping internet garbage then what I am about to show you.

AFA Filter
K9
Netmop
Wise Choice
TotalNetGuard

Please make sure to look around for reviews before you subscribe to one of these services. I have never used any of them therefore I can not know which is the best for your situation.

Now for those of you like me who don’t have the money, there are still things you can do…

First off, I want you to know that while these downloads and add-on’s will help to keep the ads and other things down on the sides of pages you visit, it will not stop everything. However, every bit counts and I want to share the techniques that I have learned in my fight for a cleaner browsing experience.

1) Firefox 2.0

If you haven’t heard about the Firefox browser you don’t know what you are missing! It is an opensource web browser that is faster and more secure than Internet Explorer. Millions of people around the world have switched to this new browser. One of the things I love about FF is that you can have multiple sites open at one time using tabs like you see on the start bar below this window. That way, you can easily work-on/visit many sites without having to open a bunch of different windows like you have to do in IE. You can even install it to a USB drive and take it and your protection with you!

Please note that you will need the Firefox web browser for these tricks to work.

2) You need a good Homepage

ISP’s like Earthlink, AOL, and PeoplePC are so kind to change your homepage (the page that you see when your first open your web browser) to their own so that they can get you to use their site. But despite there overflowing generosity (and profits from advertising) there are better places to call home (or "Homepage" in this case).

OneKey Child Safe Search Powered By Google
CrossWalk
CrossWalk Christian Directory
CrossSearch
Christian Website
Or you could make a News site your homepage.
Worthy News
Christian News Today
CBN
Agape Press
Christian Headlines

But the point is to change the secular news homepage that you have from your ISP’s, MSN, or Yahoo - to a site that will show family friendly news items and kid safe ads.

Now for those of you who don’t know how to change your homepage follow these simple steps.

For IE (Internet Explorer):

1) With the browser open go to the "Tools" tab
2) Next select "Internet Options" from the drop-down.
3) In the "Homepage" text area type the full URL of the page you want to make home – or go to that page and then click "USE CURRENT" to make it your homepage.
4) Next click "apply" at the bottom of the window.
5) Your Done!

For FF (FireFox):

1) With the browser open go to the "Tools" tab
2) Next select "Options" from the drop-down.
3) In the "Homepage" text area type the full URL of the page you want to make home – or go to that page and then click "USE CURRENT" to make it your homepage.
4) Next click "ok" at the bottom of the window.
5) Your Done!

Please note that changing the homepage on Opera, Safari, and Netscape is pretty much the same.

3) Stop FLASH Advertising

Flashblock is a great little add-on to Firefox that stops (Most) Flash files from playing. You can download the Firefox version here. Now the benif is that about 1/3 of all banner/image adds now a days seem to be flash. (Especially those that show ladies in underwear for dating sites). So with this plug-in you can disable those ads from ever running.
Well what about Flash movies I want to see? No problem, just click on the little flash Icon over that disabled movie and it will show it.
Now the only downfall is that if someone wants to see what ad is blocked all they have to do is click on it to show the ad. So this just keeps you safe from accidentally seeing garbage.

4) Kill Java Script Pop-ups!

NoScript is a great little plug-in for FF that kills javascript. Perfect for making sure you always stay in control of your browser. Yet just like Flashblock, you can choose to enable or disable javascripts on a site-by-site basis. So you don’t get a virus in your computer from someone using axtiveX controls to messup your system – but you still can use your bank sites JavaScript Login.
Just click the little "Allow JavaScript for: somesite.com" button on the sites your trust, and NoScript will remember your settings.

5) Get a new Email

Use Gmail. Now this is the hardest of all. Mostly because you have to be invited to use the service by someone who is already a member. Now before you give up, let me tell you that everyone and their brother seems have a gmail account. So ask around work or talk to the rest of your family. It is a great free email with LOTS of space – well worth it!
Why Gmail? Well, I have over forty email accounts and Gmail is the cleanest most efficient spam/porn blocker I have found (for free). Not only that but they don’t have "find love" ads on the side of the page like MSN or Yahoo! As a mater of fact, they don’t have image ads at ALL! Just some family-friendly text ads.

6) See what other's think

The WOT add-on for FF lets you know what sites have been flagged as "Adult" or "dangerous". You can find out more about WOT from their homepage.

Hopefully, this tutorial will help you fight back against web garbage. If you know of a tool that is not here contact me and I will add it to this list so others can benefit from it.