Skip introductory video ad clips with AdBlock Video Firefox plugin

Skip introductory video ad clips with AdBlock Video Firefox plugin:

Everyone is familiar with the ad clips that are a mainstay of video/news services such as Hulu or NBC, that are shown before the actual programming. Typically 20 or 30 seconds in duration, these are no major nuisance in small doses; except with more and more people increasingly consuming TV programming, news and video on the internet, these 20 or 30 seconds can add up into a large chunk of time (and bandwidth). Wouldn’t it be great if there were a browser plugin that removed introductory ads from videos?

AdBlock Video is precisely such an extension. Available for Firefox (alas no Chrome version as of this writing), this free plugin will typically allow the first ad that the video service will display, but manage to circumvent every ad thereafter within the same browsing session.

How it works: install the Firefox plugin, then browser video services as normal. The first introductory ad on the first video that you play will be displayed, however, ads will likely be skipped on every video clip after that, that is served from the same service and the same browsing session.

Note that at this point there is a known conflict between this plugin and AdBlock Plus exclusion lists, which necessitates disabling Adblock Plus when watching videos.

The video below shows the plugin in action:

The only thing I wish for? a version for Chrome.

[Thanks to reader Panzer for letting me know about this one]

Compatibility: Firefox 5 and 6, running on Windows 32/64bit, Mac, or Linux

Go to the plugin home page to download the latest version (approx 14.4 megs).