I've been using MVPS custom host files for several years and I find them to be a great way to keep a lot of crap out of my machines as well as to speed downloading web pages. The only drawback even mentionable is that I can't connect to some of the sponsored links with a simple click, but need to copy and call them directly. That's not a real problem, though.

I'm just wondering why these aren't being advocated more widely by users and in trade magazines. Are there some problems that I haven't yet encountered, or could it be that they cut into advertising profits for spam/malware programs?