Alan wrote:
> General Mailbox wrote:
>> Greetings!
>> YoKenny, you mentioned about using a Host file. It made interesting
>> reading. I am wondering a few things about it though.
>> 1) Does it do the same thing as other ad blockers like AdSubtract?
> It was not put there with ad blocking in mind, but *can* be used to
> try to effect the same sort of result.
>
>> 2) Does it do a better job at ad blocking?

> I'd have to say not, for a couple of reasons. It was never designed as
> blocker, so doesn't "run" all the time like an ad blocker does.

It does not "run" it just is.

> It has to be reloaded from disk every time you click a link.
> So in principle it's a terribly inefficient way doing it.

Once the browser is started then the file is cached and is very efficient.

> Also, it doesn't support
> wildcards or pattern matching or "smart" searching like some of the
> dedicated ad blockers do.

True.

>> 3) Who maintains the list of sites to block?

> Numerous sources, but they end up being pretty much the same lists.

18930 entries here.
http://asp.flaaten.dk/proxo/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=20

They overlap but do address different sites.
I use HOSTESS to manage and merge the different HOSTS file sources.
http://accs-net.com/hostess/

> Keeping such a list current is probably the biggest challenge.

Just like most software.

>> I have found that in my WinME Windows folder, one hosts file and 22
>> hosts.xxx (x's from 001 to 022) and one hosts.20030721-232451.backup
>> file. Are all of these ok to delete so the host file downloaded from
>> below site can take their place? Strangely enough, checking a few of
>> these hosts files show the same thing in it. Why the redundancy?
>
> They are probably updates of the same hosts source, that haven't been
> deleted. Point is that Windows can only use one hosts file - the one
> named "hosts", without any extension at all. So all the ones you
> mentioned will never get used by Windows. BUT, this is not to say that
> they don't belong to some 3rd party software.
>
>> # Start of entries inserted by Spybot - Search & Destroy
>> # End of entries inserted by Spybot - Search & Destroy
>> 127.0.0.1 AdSubtract # Added by AdSubtract for auto-dial.
>> 127.0.0.1 ie3.proxy.aol.com # Added by AdSubtract for AOL support.
>>
>> I ask because the below site did not have instructions that I saw
>> about what to do with all the other hosts files, and before I delete
>> original files in the Windows folder, I wanted to know what to do.
>> Thank you in advance for your reply.
>
> My own advice would be to go with a good proxy and firewall (free )
> that can do the job of hosts, do it much more efficiently, and provide
> many additional valuable services as well. As to deleting them, maybe
> you could try to move them to a temp folder for a while and see if any
> of the 3rd party stuff you run is affected.