And now for an announcement from your friendly neighborhood IT worker.

If you use Ad Block Plus, you should uninstall it and download and install uBlock Origin immediately. (There are Firefox versions of all the extensions I’ll talk about here, just google ‘em. And some for IE, Edge and Opera.)

Ad Block Plus is now now only letting advertisers pay them to whitelist some ads, but is now letting advertisers pay them to put their own ads on websites INSTEAD of what you would normally see on that website.

Please remember that it’s possible to spread malware, including Crypotowall type malware, through ads on websites. Yes, ads are how websites make most to all of their revenue, but until ads can be trusted to not destroy your machine, you should not view them if possible.

Please make sure you get uBlock Origin and not just uBlock.

I also suggest installing a flash blocker like FlashControl. This will keep flash from automatically loading on websites you visit. Unfortunately, malware can be spread through just about any version of flash. Make sure you keep flash up to date, as well. FlashControl will be slightly disruptive to your browsing habits, but most things will load with just a single click. You can always disable it on a website if it’s being too disruptive somewhere.

If you really want to protect your privacy, install Privacy Badger. Privacy Badger will stop trackers / cookies from knowing who you are and where you’ve been on the internet. It also can be slightly disruptive, so if a site isn’t working correctly, disable one or both of FlashControl and Privacy Badger.

Even if you don’t want to do FlashControl and Privacy Badger, PLEASE do yourself a favor and move to uBlock Origin. Hope this helps!