Jeff Beard

Unlike many people, I’m not a fan of Google’s addition of instant previews. I’m a fidgety clicker and clicking in common areas where I rest my mouse pointer activates the preview. Not only annoying, I found this to be an odd behavior considering there is an icon specifically designed to activate the preview. Why would the text preview be a hotspot too? Regardless, the pop-ups instantly made Google search results a very bad user experience.

An additional aggravation was that turning off the previews is not a configuration option.

Being a web developer, I opened up Firebug and started rooting around for the “problem”. After sifting through Google’s nearly inscrutable code for about 30 seconds, I asked Google directly for a solution. Google pointed me to this article on Lifehacker about how to use the AdBlock Plus browser plugin to do the job. The solution is to add these 3 rules:


google.com##.vspi
google.com##.vspib
google.com###vspb


As it turns out, Facebook can use your profile photo in ads. You can disable this easily enough but if you use AdBlock Plus, you’ll need to disable it before adjusting your Facebook settings. If you do not, you won’t be able to see the form.

From Jim M. Goldstein’s blog, this is the series of steps required for you to

All you have to do to prevent this is sign in to Facebook and click through to (get ready) -> Settings -> Privacy -> News Feed and Wall -> Facebook Ads -> Appearance in Facebook Ads and click “no one.”

And remember, if you use Firefox and AdBlock Plus you will need to disable AdBlock Plus in order to actually see the settings to disable the use of your photo in advertisements.

Of course, if you want to see your smiling face in online dating ads, just leave things the way they are.

Read more: http://www.jmg-galleries.com/blog/2009/07/19/your-photos-now-featured-in-facebook-ads