Posted on 08/25/2008 10:45:45 AM PDT by Winged Hussar
Web site advertising is often reasonable, and it is the way that many sites earn enough money to deliver their content.
...There are unfortunately advertisers that abuse the privilege of access to people’s computers by pushing ads–usually Shockwave Flash–with excessive bandwidth utilization that slows even DSL Internet connections noticeably. (We banned Doubleclick.net from our computer eight or nine years ago, when we were still using a dial-up connection, because it kept refreshing its banner ads.) Other ads superimpose themselves over the page content, and have no button on which to click to close them. Still others vibrate or jiggle back and forth, and are unpleasant to look at. Adding the domains to Internet Explorer’s “Red Circle” list does not keep them off one’s browser, either.
We have found that the following method (which is apparently what at least one shareware package does) will ban a Web site from all access to one’s Internet browser. You need to find the HOSTS file on your hard drive. Ours is at C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC\HOSTS. Edit it as follows to ban Web sites from your computer. Note that you have to add the virtual domain (e.g. ad.doubleclick.net) as well as the base domain (doubleclick.net). Note: the sample banned sites are not part of the original Microsoft material. (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp. ends with ” # 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host.”
(Excerpt) Read more at husaria.wordpress.com ...
You will get the blank popups when you have an ad blocker working but allow popups for the site.
It happens for me at mlb.com, since you have to allow popups to get the mlb.tv live games. Their ads will popup with blank windows.
If you want to black hole an IP address you can do that in the route table.
route add 216.73.86.55 MASK 0.0.0.0 127.0.0.1 -p
mark
This a pretty good approach if all you are doing is looking to deny access to a few specific web sites. IMO, one is better off deploying a firewall on the perimeter of their network. Not only can it block specific hosts, but it can also enforce policies based on content, and what types of traffic are allowed.
I just downloaded Ad Block Plus. I’m looking forward to trying it!
I have used a HOSTS file for years and it works fine with Windows XP. However, a large enough HOSTS file will drag Windows 2000 Pro to a crawl, and so I don’t recommend it for that version of Windows.
The key thing about the latter being, it can be set to auto-update.
Don’t forget Adblock too. You can even block specific images. For example, one particularly ugly avatar on another forum now comes up blank.
And if you want to get around the black hole, use a proxy.
How do you edit it? When I open it in Notepad, make changes and then try to save it, it stops me. It says something has it open. I closed the browswer and Zonealarm. What else uses it?
I use the Firefox browser, plus:
Ad Aware extension - blocks ads.
Ad Aware Filterset.GUpdater - updates the blocked list
Add Art - Firefox extension that puts Japanese wood blocks where the ads were.
No Script extension - Firefox forbids scripting on the page unless you allow it.
Cookie Monster extension - Extension easily manages and forbids/removes cookies from ads that might sneak in, though few ever do.
Bump, BTTT, As a bookmark
After that I went to a few websites and got lots of blank squares with the text "advertisement" in the middle.
I don't know if it matters, but I'm using XP, btw.
Is that a firefox add-on?
yup
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