Host you foes!

There are several ways to block ads.

You could get Firefox and install some add-ons like Adblock Plus or get something like an ad filtering proxy such as privoxy which is bundled with Tor (The Onion Router). You can even BUY stuff to block ads. However, there are even easier and cheaper ways. But first, i gotta run my agenda and tell you why its ok to block ads.

While some argue that blocking ads is Bad for the free Internet, I can't help but disagree. Most advertisers got themselves into this mess by being obnoxious and intrusive. Others are simply paying too much and willing to do anything to get noticed. It simply doesn't make sense that people should be SUBJECTED to ads.

You can turn off you TV or change the channel... People with TiVo or a PVR can pause and fast-forward. We actually record free movies and can edit ads out completely. In the future i wouldn't be surprised to see something that reads closed captions, voice/audio data and other things like time reference and determine automagically -- This is the show, and this is a series of ads.

People listen to music in the car can push simple buttons to scan through stations to listen to music, not ads. Its clear radio stations try NOT to use ads as it always seems to be a good advertising point (Hey, thats a Paradox! Advertise you don't Advertise!). It would almost seem this is the #1 quality a station has... less talk, more music.

Newspapers could sell for NOTHING and get survive off ad revenue a few years back.

Why shouldn't the Internet be any different?

Ok, here's the point of the post. You can block ads with windows alone... (or linux). Windows uses this thing called a HOSTS file to store address information with site information. For example instead of having to rely on DNS or memorizing some IP address for a URL, you could add an entry in your HOSTS file... simply visiting the remote server requires looking up the address to see if its in the HOSTS file. All OS's do it. The system was originally intended for large networks, where IP address were fixed... visiting your company's Intranet simply required typing URL's into your address bar and the OS would route the traffic across the network.

But there is one address that special... Yours.

Its called a loopback test. Its an address thats used to simulate send data "out" a network interface (or network device such as a USB DSL router) and come right back to you... hence "loopback". So if i added an entry into my WindowsXP host table, and said AOL.com had an IP or this loopback address (which is 127.0.0.1), what would happen?

1. The browser checks the HOST table.
2. An entry is found and correlates to 127.0.0.1
3. 127.0.0.1 is contacted, thus the signal comes 'right back'
4. No activity is heard back, because 127.0.0.1 (your system) is not hosting any HTTP/web traffic

Basically, AOL.com becomes inaccessible. So what does this have to do with blocking ads... all i've shown you how to do was block AOL.com

Well.... what about Doubleclick.com? Ads come from that server right? Hmm....

But the best part is that people already know where ads come from, or have a list of sites and address that send advertisements. you can visit This wonderful site and download a compiled HOSTS table and use your OS to block ads. The site gives you a guide and its pretty easy to do even if your not very tech savvy.