A couple of FTers suggested using the Ghostery add on to help block tracking and other crap while surfing the web, so I tried it.

Wow - it is great. I use Firefox, and downloaded Ghostery from Mozilla, and it has speeded up things appreciably, especially when using my 3G MiFi. Ghostery blocks all sorts of ads and trackers, including crap like Disqus which was always slowing things down for me. I can now usually stream video that I want even on the 3G connection, which really didn't work great before. I find that my Mifi disconnects less often. And it's nice to know that I am being tracked less often. You'd be amazed how much tracking crap it blocks, especially on "news" websites.

I suspect this would help speed up surfing with sketchy onboard wifi, too.

If you download it, you can opt out of automatic anonymous reporting of which items are blocked, and I did that.

It is available for FF and Chrome on computers.

The other amazing aspect is its effect on surfing using an iPad. For that purpose, you download the free app from the iStore, get the address of a proxy server for wifi use, and then can surf ad free on iPad using the Chrome browser. The salutary effects on speed there are even more noticeable. Finally, an ....... equivalent for iPad.

Cheers,

Doc