I used https://www.privoxy.org/ https://www.privoxy.org/ around 2002-2005, before adblockers as browser extensions existed. Proxy based adblocking was much easi

I used https://www.privoxy.org/ https://www.privoxy.org/ around 2002-2005, before adblockers as browser extensions existed. Proxy based adblocking was much easier when basically no website used SSL.