Last update: 26.3.2007 - Major changes to underlying code. Much faster now! Reinstalling is highly recommended. You must use Greasemonkey version 0.6.8.20070314 at least (update your addons).

Features:

This script enhances Haaretz (www.haaretz.co.il) in one big way and many small ones. Just give it a try to see what it does! The small enhancements include removing textual ads, cleaning out and streamlining pages, etc. List of improvements so far:

1. Removing the textual advertisements at the bottom of articles.
2. Improving the legibility of the front page and of a few others, by removing the rightmost column of advertisements, and expanding the other columns. (This is a good thing even if you already have Adblock.)
3. The “news flashes” scroller at the front page is expanded when you move the cursor over it.
4. Removing the annoying floating ad at the front page.
5. A “favicon” icon now appears on tabs, so you can easily distinguish them.
6. Tabs will now have more informative titles. (e.g. “Editorials” or “Gallery” instead of a generic “Print Edition”.)

The big enhancement is more dramatic. It lets you read articles without ever leaving the “article list” page. Whenever you click on a link to an article, the article will be shown inside the page you’re currently viewing—just below the link you clicked. Another click will close it. (Or you can now use the ‘close’ button.) This is essentially like reading talkbacks on Ynet, or reading messages on a Tapuz forum. You can easily turn off this feature if you like. Just un-check the checkbox that appears at the bottom of the page.

Further Tips:

1. Eliminate banners and graphical ads by installing the extension Adblock Plus . (My script doesn’t do that, because redundancy is bad.)
2. Problems with encoding? Does text with Hebrew, English and numbers get messed-up? install Effie Nadiv’s extension Fix Ha’aretz Encoding.
3. Tired of talkbacks? Install my other script, Haaretz Talkbacks, to remove them for good.
4. Use the script Haaretz Books Viewer for the Books Online and Gallery Online sections.
5. If you want similar functionality for Ynet, check out my experimental script Ynet Enhancer

Change Log:

• 0.6 (26.3.07) MAJOR changes to underlying infrastructure. Script is much faster now. You must use Greasemonkey version 0.6.8.20070314 at least.
• 0.51 (1.11.06) Small bug fix – on few odd occasions, lists of links wouldn’t get processed.
• 0.5 (17.10.06) Added a “favicon” icon for the tabs. Tabs now have an informative title. Before-and-after screenshot:
• 0.41 (10.9.06) Tiny bug fix.
• 0.4 (22.8.06) Added a ‘close’ button; removed auto-refresh.
• 0.31 (25.1.06) Bug fix – “Loading…” was shown indefinitely. Improved help box.
• 0.3 (22.1.06) Major update – was made compatible with Firefox 1.5!