There is a real push toward a more social web, and claims that it makes the web a better place. However, I am glad that someone has developed this extension. I have never liked all those auto updating twitter streams, facebook likes, etc. I have found them annoying ant distracting.
"Making the web a better place" means gaining easier access to content. However those widgets only make me gain _better access to people I don't know, nor care about_ and pull me away from content.
So the ads are still loaded, but you don't get the visual clutter (I guess that the point of most adblockers), on Firefox, ABP will stop ads from loading in the first place.
Actually, Adblock for Chrome can block ads too, but I think not all of them. It happend once Google let in by mistake some code from Webkit, that allowed for this to happen. And then they didn't remove it anymore.
Here's what Adblock's author says:
"New in version 2.0: Ads are actually blocked from downloading now, instead of just being removed after the fact!"
I'm using Shellfish for Safari which does a nice job of hiding these widgets. Unfortunately it doesn't block them completely so they're still in the background slowing down page loads even if you can't see them.
I should point out the big difference between an ad that provides the proprietor some meager revenue and the intrusive FB friends widget or the embedded twitter stream linking to some culinary porn, presumably someone's breakfast.
Great Extension! I have been using Fanboy's "Annoyances" filter for AdBlock, which has been working pretty well. For anyone interested, you can find it at https://secure.fanboy.co.nz/fanboy-addon.txt
