3. You can use a custom HOSTS file (such as
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm) to eliminate 99.9% of ads and tracking at the operating system level. It's faster and won't eat memory like Adblock Plus will. The only downside is the blocking is less fine-grained (can only block entire domains, not individual pages etc.), but that won't matter for the vast majority of sites.
I don't use a specific adblocker extension anymore because my HOSTS file covers basically everything. I definitely notice a speed difference and it's browser-agnostic, so other programs won't be able to connect to evil domains either.