Thursday, November 06, 2008

I hate ads on my web pages so much, that...

I've decided to take control of my browser, and just not see them!

If you're running Windows, search for your hosts file.
(It may be in different places depending on your version, but its there. Click Search (wherever that is on your system) and just type "hosts" (without the inverted commas))

When its found, edit it with Notepad. You'll see something like:

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

127.0.0.1 localhost


At the end of the file, type in the following lines:

127.0.0.1 mjxads.internet.com
127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 pic.adbrite.com
127.0.0.1 ads.adbrite.com
127.0.0.1 banner.tattomedia.com
127.0.0.1 www.britepic.com
127.0.0.1 ads.socialmedia.com



with tabs (or at least one space between the 127.0.0.1 and the actual hostname)

Save the file.
Restart your browser.

Hopefully, you'll eliminate a good number of ads now.
Faster surfing - that's always good especially on a slow connection.

You can always find out other ad serving sites by looking at the source code of the web page, but I'll leave that as an exercise for you!

Let me know what you think.

Here's to faster surfing (which we'll need if the Australian Government goes ahead with its stupid mandatory internet filtering at the ISP level of sites it deems illegal or otherwise not in the best interests of Australians.....)


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2 comments:

el Braddles said...

There's a program by the name of SpyBot: Search and Destroy which essentially does this: adds a large list of recognised ad websites / hosts to the file, pointing them to 0.0.0.0, and also makes the file read-only.

Brad said...

How cool is that?
I have that - perhaps an earlier version - but I like people to know how to do it for themselves.

Education is the key, you know! :)