Host File Last Update: 2/9/2004 9:11 AM PST
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Increased Speed
As access speeds grow, the size and complexity of ads grows with it. The bloat in these ads keeps the download times for pages at the ragged edge of tolerability even as access speeds increase dramatically. Indeed, as the speed of your internet access goes up, ad blocking becomes increasingly more beneficial, not less. Making this configuration change will approximately double your surfing speed on many commercial sites. If you use Yahoo heavily, you will approximately triple your surfing speed. Surprisingly, this turns out to be quite noticable even if you are on a T1 or faster connection.
Enhanced Privacy
SURFER BEWARE: ADVERTISER'S ON YOUR TRAIL
Internet advertising server DoubleClick is tracking the online activity of users, recording their names, purchases, and addresses, reports USA Today. DoubleClick is combining the data it accumulates on Web user activity with a direct marketing database of 90 million households maintained by Abacus Direct, which DoubleClick acquired last year. Privacy International's David Banisar says the move threatens online anonymity, while consumer advocates say they will complain to the FCC. Junkbusters' Jason Catlett says, "For four years [DoubleClick] has said [the services] don't identify you personally, and now they're admitting they are going to identify you." DoubleClick says the practice allows ads to target users better, improving the online experience, and the company also points out that users can opt to not have their use tracked. Banisar claims that opt out language is usually buried in a site's privacy statement.
(USA Today, 26 Jan 2000)
If you are uncomfortable with DoubleClick knowing who you are, where you live, your credit card number, what you watch on the web and what you buy, you need to opt out immediately. To further punish them (since they have been doing this surreptitiously for some time) you should block their ads to reduce their revenue.
If you run Linux, another Unix, BeOS, or Windows or MacOS, and use Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer to surf the web, you can easily block many, many banner ads in just two easy steps. As a side benefit, you will foil DoubleClick's monitoring of your surfing patterns. In less than two minutes you can eliminate 90% of the ads on the web from your surfing day. The following configuration will block ads from sites in the USA, the UK, Germany, India, Thailand, China, Australia, France, Japan, Norway, Austria, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Russia and other places around the world.
If you run Linux, another Unix, BeOS, or Windows or MacOS, and use Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer to surf the web, you can easily (and freely) block many, many banner ads in just two easy steps. As a side benefit, you will foil DoubleClick's monitoring of your surfing patterns. In less than two minutes you can eliminate 90% of the ads on the web from your surfing day. The following configuration will block ads from sites in the USA, the UK, Germany, India, Thailand, China, Australia, France, Japan, Norway, Austria, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Russia and other places around the world.
To opt out of DoubleClick's monitoring scheme, go to http://www.doubleclick.net/optout/default.asp and follow the directions. It will place a cookie on your computer that will disable doubleclick's tracking. Unless you follow the directions below you will still see their ads.
NOTE: If you are unable to do this, perhaps you'd be interested in downloading and installing commercial filtering software: http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Internet/Servers/Proxy/Filtering/Ad_Filters/. Radsoft's Silencer (Windows) can automate most of these host changes for you as well: http://radsoft.net/bloatbusters/downloads/silencer.zip (or http://www.planetc.com/users/bubba/stuff/silencer.zip). Adshield LLC's freeware banner ad blocker for Internet Explorer (http://adshield.org/) is also a excellent way to block banners without modifying your hosts file.
First, add the following entries to your hosts file. The host file always has the same format, but the location varies from OS to OS as described in the following table:
| Operating System | Name of Hosts file | Comments | |
| Linux/BSD/Solaris/Unixes | /etc/hosts | Must be root | |
| BeOS | /boot/beos/etc/hosts | ||
| Windows NT | c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts | May need admin privileges | |
| Windows 95/98 | c:\windows\hosts | If you have difficulty, try Gianpaolo Baglione's variation. | |
| Macintosh | Hosts in Preference folder. (Case matters). | Place the Mac hosts file in the Preference folder. Name it "Hosts". Restart.
OR Copy the Mac hosts file to your computer. In the TCP/IP Control Panel, choose 'Select Hosts file' Select this file. Close and restart. |
NOTE: If you get a 'Server Cannot be Found' alert dialogue each time an ad (doesn't) appear, there is a Control Panel called Web Sharing, which needs to be toggled ON. (If you are on a dial-up account, the best solution is to use the control strip to turn web sharing on when you connect, then off again just before you disconnect.) |
Second, start one of the browsers in the following table and follow the directions to paste in the long line below.
| Browser | Steps | Comments |
| Macintosh Users | Nothing. You are done. | |
| Netscape Navigator |
|
|
| Internet Explorer 4.x and Older |
|
|
| Internet Explorer 5.x+ |
|
No need to paste the long list below. |
This will tell Navigator/Explorer to access these sites directly. Since your hosts file says they are the local machine, ad lookups will fail and you can surf in peace without distraction, with the added bonus that many web pages will load quite a bit faster.
To see the difference, clear your memory and disk caches. That's it! You have just toasted over 90% of the banner ads on the web.
If you administer a proxy server for multiple users, perhaps at an ISP or a corporation--you can put the list of servers above in your proxy machine's /etc/hosts file and conveniently block ads for all your users. This will also save you lots of bandwidth and help protect your users' privacy. ISPs might find this a nice value-added differentiator in their competitive business. You can have two proxy servers: the default one that blocks ads for users, and a second optional one for users that just love ads. The latter can probably go on a machine already used for something else since the additional load from ad-loving surfers is going to be light.
This documentation and ColdFusion Web Application is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
Download from http://ftp.ssmedia.com/AdBlockHosts.zip (122k)
Allaire/Macromedia ColdFusion Professional/Enterprise 4.5.2+ Required.
Populated Access 2000 Database included.
Server-side Host Modification & Javascript by James Moberg, SunStar Media
Original information derived from @Man at
http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~atman/spam/adblock.shtml