About the most usefull bit of gear I have found for web surfing is a free product called Webwasher by Seimens Computers.
It sits in your system tray, and removes all the banner adds from your browsing. they are never downloaded (speeding up the amount of real data you get per hour) and filters out those annoying pop-up windows that seem to abound at certain websites....
I have tried many banner killers in the past but this actualy works. I highly recommend it.
Since 19th Nov 1999 it has filtered 7,708 images (from 30,113 that would have been received if it wasn't running), 128 Windows, 957 Scripts from 36,921 connections from my 262 megz received over the same period.
BTW it also keeps a pretty good stats window if you want it.
http://www.webwasher.com/
Have fun!
BTW, I try to turn if off (just click once on the system try icon) and click on one of the banners on pprune every once in a while.. anything to help Danny pay the bills. Webwasher can be turned off and on whenever you like without resetting your net connection, settings etc.
(Edited to fix Recomment to Recommend... Gawd, can't believe I didn't see that clanger earlier. Also added the note about the banners on PPRuNe )
[This message has been edited by OzmateBugsmasher (edited 04 February 2000).]