Back in August, I blogged about an article that predicted that all Web browsers would eventually block all ads by default. I ended with a poll in which a plurality of respondents said that sounded like a swell idea.
Ten months later, no browser has introduced sweeping ad-blocking. But on Monday, Apple introduced Safari 5, a new version of its browser with a feature called Reader. It’s not an ad blocker per se, but it does remove ads as part of what it does. And it’s the first significant development in built-in ad, um, discouragers since pop-up blockers became standard equipment years ago.
Like Readability and Instapaper, it examines a Web page with an article on it, strips out navigational elements, Flash modules, and other items other than the story itself, then displays the text and images in a streamlined view that looks a bit like a word-processing document. When an article is broken into multiple pages, it’s also smart enough to stitch all the pages together without making you click on anything.
I know many of you still stubbornly use Internet Explorer (hello, Carl). I used to, as well. But Firefox, with all its lovely add-ons and tweaks, is just more fun to use.
At some point in the second half of this year–assuming it isn’t delayed–Adobe is going to ship Flash Player 10.1 for Android phones, thereby unlocking gazillions of hours of Flash video on the Web for owners of Android handsets. Mobile browser company 
Are you a browser junkie with a phone running Android 2.0 or above? Mozilla has released a 
