Capturing web content - how to get rid of the ads??

DevonNote is an extremely helpful tool for me as it lets me store web content I read and considered interesting very quickly.
I do that very often in blog posts or forum discussions I read.

The only thing that bothers me:
In weblogs and other sites, there are often advertisements (google ads, etc.) and they are often placed in the middle of an article so that I cant avoid copying them with the rest of the content (if I want to get all at once).

Is there any possibility to filter out the ads?
Or maybe I can avoid displaying ads in the browser (Safari or Firefox) directly (which - I admit - is not a question concerning DevonNote, but maybe someone here had the same problem and solved it)?

Martin

I haven’t done this for a while, but I think it works.

  1. select the text to be copied to DN
  2. use the Services menu: DevonNote: Append Plain Note
  3. the note passes to DN as plain text, without ads.

If you prefer rich text, enter the plain note, Select All and Command-Shift-T to convert it to rich text.

You may also Copy Plain Note and then paste it into a new text entry, but that’s an extra step.

What you want is a superb Internet proxy called “Privoxy” [www.privoxy.org]. Install it, then read the docs to find out how to setup an Internet proxy on your Mac.

It will transparently strip out advertisements for ALL application that use the Web, not just your web browsers. I use it at the “Medium” setting, and know of only one website where I have to temporarily disable to access its content. Otherwise, it works with all of the sites I use.

It makes the Internet feel clean and simple, without those annoying flashing banners everywhere that I’ve come to loathe. Install and enjoy!

John

Hi John,

thank you very much - that sounds exactly like what I was searching for!

I’ll try it out.

Martin

Like Martin I use devonnote (and Devonthink) many times daily to save clippings from the web. One thing I have found useful (though not fool-proof) is to click print/printer friendly format/text-only (if there is one and however it is labelled) icon on the relevant page. More often than not that produces a cleaner page which you can then mark and import as a rich note.

As I said, it’s not foolproof. Sometimes it leads me to both a neat text page and the printer dialogue, in wich case I just escape the print dialogue and proceed as before. Sometimes there is no way to escape the print dialogue and reach the “printer-friendly” page, in which case I can print it as a pdf to Devonthink, while Devonnote (that, just as Devonthink PE, hasn’t been properly updated for years) doesn’t provide a similar option.

Mats

Hi Mats,

thanks for this idea - you’re right, quite often that helps to “clean up” a bit.

Martin