Earlier today, Firefox was not rendering a page correctly, so I switched over to Internet Explorer hoping it would. As I did so, something dawned upon me: I haven’t seen an online advertisement in over three years, let alone clicked one.

For example, one website that I frequent, GigaOm.com has a front page that is riddled with advertisements when opened in Internet Explorer, but none in Firefox. The reason? AdBlock Plus. AdBlock is an extension for Firefox that dynamically blocks advertisements using wildcard filters, etc. For example, three filters that were automatically applied to block all ad’s on GigaOm.com were “/magic-ads/*”, “.googleadservices.”, “.fmpub.net”.

GigaOm — Internet Explorer:

GigaOm — Firefox with AdBlock Plus:

Similarly on TechCrunch.com, a site I frequent more than 3-4 times a day, the filters that dynimcally blocked advertisements were, “.snap.com/$script”, “/ads/*”, “/openads/*?”, “.fmpub.net/”, and “http://ads.”

TechCrunch — Internet Explorer:

TechCrunch — Firefox with AdBlock Plus:

Similarly, NYTimes.com:

NYTimes — Internet Explorer:

NYTimes — Firefox with AdBlock Plus:

As AdBlock becomes more and more popular, the return that advertisers are receiving for their money is falling. Even though publishers will tout subscription numbers and daily uniques, the actual number of users that see the advertising is impossible to gage because AdBlock Plus blocks advertisements after the page has rendered, thus still loading the content, but just preventing it from displaying.

So back to the title? How can Microsoft Kill Google, and also entirely shake up how the internet works? Build AdBlock functionality into Internet Explorer 8. Sure it’d lose advertising revenue from Live.com, Hotmail.com, but is that Microsoft’s core business?

Microsoft has one advantage over Google that people always forget about. They make real products that people pay real money for. They aren’t resellers or organizers of information. But rather, they produce and sell products.

Kill online advertising and power returns back to the people who produce products that people demand. Game over. Checkmate.