Affine - Remove unwanted sites from your search engine results


Tired of irrelevant sites and advertising? Wouldn't it be nice if you could:

Hover to enlarge
Affine is the add-in for Internet Explorer that you need.
When you view search engine results, Affine adds two icons next to each result: the icon, which hides the site and the icon which fades it, for this and all future searches. The toolbar allows you to switch the filtering on and off and shows the number of sites currently hidden.

Things that are better off hidden

Features

Download instructions

FAQ

Installing

What does Affine cost?
Nothing, it's free, enjoy it!
Does it contain any spyware, nagware, crippleware, limitations?
No, I have better things to do with my life. If you downloaded Affine from here, then I guarantee it's clean. If you find a copy with viruses elsewhere, please let me know, and I'll do something nasty to the culprit
What are the pre-requisites?
None, except Microsoft's .NET Framework 2.0 (the setup program will prompt you to install it if necessary)
Is there a version for Firefox / Opera / …?
No. For FireFox, you might want to look at http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/9275, which seems to provide similar functionality

Using

Will Affine slow my browsing?
Imperceptibly. It takes Affine about 0.05 seconds to analyse a 100-result page on my pokey 1.8GHz laptop, but you'll save at least this every time you click a result on a re-directing search engine
The hide and fade icons have disappeared. What's wrong?

Most likely reason: You've inadvertently switched off the filter. If the filter icon on the Affine toolbar hasn't got a blue circle on it, click to re-enable the filter.

Another reason: You are browsing with the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer, which is not supported, sorry.

Unlikely (and unpleasant) reason: The search engine has changed the format of its search results to the extent that Affine can no longer identify the links to add the icons. Please, send me an email and I'll do my best to fix the problem, as it affects all Affine users. Thanks.

Faded sites are too dim, can I make them a bit darker?
Sure. Click the Affine icon on the toolbar to open the settings dialog. In the Options tab, change the % to a higher value.
It doesn't work with search engine XYZ. What can I do?
Send me an email. I'll do my best to add the parameters for your engine. But I can't promise anything…
Can I copy my list of unwanted sites to another computer?
Sure. Your unwanted sites are in C:\Documents and Settings\[YourName]\Application Data\Affine\sites.txt - just copy this file to the same place on your other PC and restart Internet Explorer.

Geek's corner

What's this "removes re-direction" claim?
The results links in most search engines are links to the engine itself, who learns what you clicked and then re-directs you to the site that you selected. Affine removes these re-directions and points the link directly to the target site. You get where you want to go, quicker.
Does it affect the HTML source code if I "view source"?
No. Affine modifies IE's DOM directly, you can't see these changes (well, you can, but I'll leave it as an exercise for you to find out how)
Will you publish the source code?
No, unless you can supply me with a convincing reason to do so.