Is There An Effective Way To Kill Banner Ads? 37
2MuchC0ffeeMan asks: "Is there a way, in Windows or Linux, to kill ads? I saw a browser the other day for the Mac, and it could recognize and NOT load banner ads. Are there programs out there that take this a step further, and reject cookies from whoever is sending the ad?
The thing is, I hate how the internet is becoming a huge database of user information. Surveys, user history, usernames, and preferences are becoming the buisness of tomorrow. With people like amazon.com now selling user info, I would like to take a stand against this kind of practice." By now, most readers have heard about Junkbuster, and a few of you may know about Guidescope but many new Internet users may not, and there are probably other cookie/ad blocking sites out there that others might find useful. What are the possibilities that future browsers may incorporate ad blocking technuqies and what is the best way (aside from a "cookie-domain kill file" to detect a banner ad?
ad blocking (Score:1)
it allows filtering of banners, popups, java, javascript, referers, animations, ads, etc.
Configurable by site, latest version also will pull up a complete list of cookies on your machine and allow you to selectively delete them, as well as clear out your temp files
Ive been using the various versions for the last 2 years, and it is the single best piece of software ive ever purchased. (no i don't work for them, just love the product)
anyway, its another option for those of us stuck on windoze boxes
Re:One way... (Score:2)
Say what you mean. (Score:1)
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Naviscope (Score:2)
It can also, optionally, filter cookies, java, popups as well as improving privacy (blocks system info, referrer info). It also does handy stuff like keep your system clock accurate.
You can set up different filtering options for different sites very easily.
Best of all, free to use.
Another good method to block irritating advertisers is using the hosts file, though this can cause slow timeout problems with Netscape.
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X X
One way... (Score:3)
A good list of adbar sites to blacklist:
ads.1for1.com
connect.247media.ads.link4ads.com
ads.admonitor.net
ads.amazingmedia.com
view.avenuea.com
image.avea.a7.avenuea.com
www.banerz.com
www.burstnet.com
www.commission-junction.com
ad.doubleclick.net
netgrav.ea.com
adimg.egroups.com
js-adex3.flycast.com
ad-adex3.flycast.com
jeeves.flycast.com
ads.focalink.com
ads01.focalink.com
ads02.focalink.com
ads34.focalink.com
ads35.focalink.com
w25.hitbox.com
www.hostreview.com
adforce.imgis.com
ad.linksynergy.com
ads.msn.com
ads.mysimon.com
server3.pennyweb.com
adserver.ugo.com
oz.valueclick.com
www.virtuads.com
a32.g.a.yimg.com
a372.g.a.yimg.com
us.a1.yimg.com
It's also a good idea to add in some of the 'nasty' sites the trolls post on
-- Sig (120 chars) --
Your friendly neighborhood mIRC scripter.
Useful links (Score:3)
[http://grc.com] Steve Gibson's pages. Lots of cool stuff, including information on how ad companies are abusing the privacy of net users.
[http://lavasoft.de] Look for 'Ad-Aware' - IMO the best spyware remover (see Steve Gibson's pages for a description).
[http://homestead.deja.com/user.raymarron/] Hostess, a useful Windows app to aid adding entries to the hosts file.
[http://accs-net.com/hosts/] Info on using the hosts file. Has an example hosts file.
[http://accs-net.com/smallfish/] Excellent privacy site, links and info.
I'd post my hosts file but it currently has 7225 entries.
<O O>
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Squid (Score:2)
You can also set up ipchains to filter out certain IP addresses.
Long term solution: (Score:3)
They'll die on their own (as they are beginning to do, if you've noticed that dot-commers with business models based on page view ad sales...are in the outs investment-wise).
Another way: don't keep silent when your company uses them on its web sites -- complain loudly...
Anybody else think this is a strange topic for Slash-banner-ad-revenue-model-Dot?
hmmm...Well, it hasn't made front page...
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
WebWasher (Score:1)
Re:Useful links - one for Quietust :) (Score:1)
[http://www.smartin-designs.com/] Huge hosts file (currently 9326 entries), includes some stuff which isn't directly ad related - you may want to edit it before use.
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Squid filters (Score:1)
Re:Long term solution: (Score:2)
And my suggestion for a filtering windows package is Proxomitron [cjb.net] -- works best with IE5.x so you can disable javascript errors (it kicks up a few).
IE's security zones (Score:2)
Not slick, I know, but hey, might be of use to someone....
I'm thinking of replacing them with custom ads! (Score:1)
"Meeting at 3pm"
"you have 3 new messages"
"Bob's wedding - all invited"
"You are surfing too much!"
Wonder if people in my company would notice
Right now replacing the images is relatively easy. But replacing the click throughs requires more work, and I'll need to be directly in the path.
Cheerio
Link.
A neat trick for those behind proxies. (Score:3)
Here's an example file. Save it as any filename you like, and set it as the location of your "Automatic Proxy Configuration" in your browser of choice.
function FindProxyForURL(url, host) {
//If only a hostname, go directly.
// Remove a few ads /*Your proxy addr and port here*/";
if (isPlainHostName(host)) {
return "DIRECT";
}
if (
(
url.indexOf("/RealMedia/") > 0
|| url.indexOf("ads.x10.com") > 0
|| url.indexOf("ads3.zdnet.com") > 0
|| url.indexOf("/ads/") > 0
|| url.indexOf("/Ads/") > 0
|| url.indexOf("/adverts/") > 0
|| url.indexOf("/adserver/") > 0
|| ( dnsDomainIs( host,"doubleclick.net") && url.indexOf("/adj/") == -1)
|| dnsDomainIs( host,"focalink.com")
|| dnsDomainIs( host,"adbureau.net")
|| dnsDomainIs( host,"ads.imgis.com")
|| dnsDomainIs( host,"ad.preferences.com")
|| dnsDomainIs( host,"view.avenuea.com")
)
&& url.indexOf(".js") == -1
&& url.indexOf("jx.ads") == -1
&& url.indexOf("js.ng") == -1
&& url.indexOf("jsad") == -1
&& url.indexOf("jscript") == -1
&& url.indexOf("addyn") == -1
&& url.indexOf("type=script") == -1
)
{
return "DIRECT";
}
else
{
return "PROXY
}
}
Better link for Junkbuster (Score:2)
You can get a better version with updated blocklists and more Windows-looking from Stefan Waldherr [waldherr.org].
__
Norton Internet Security (Score:1)
Not only that, but if you want to block cookies from yahoo.com but not mail.yahoo.com, you can do that (and all of the above listed).
http://www.symantec.com/sabu/nis [symantec.com] is where to find it
Not loading image == No cookies (Score:2)
Incidentally, I'm writing a simple win32 program that employs the javascript-proxy-autoconfig method. Netscape automatically asks localhost, port 10401 (who knows where that came from...) for an ad, and my program happily returns a 1x1 transparent gif. It's amazingly simple, yet powerful... The program isn't quite fit for public consumption, really, and there are many other things out there that do the same trick, I'm sure...
Do a google search for "proxy autoconfig block banner ads" or similar things, and you'll find plenty.
Blocking Software (Score:1)
The only Banner Ad blockers thatI have seen simply prevent the display of pictures that are standard banner size: x pixels by x pixels.
Re:Mozilla has the anwser (Score:2)
A web browser should be constructed to benefit the user. Mozilla allows you to selectively block ads from sites without prompting you over and over again. It also allows the same flexibility in dealing with cookies.
There is absolutely no reason whatsoever that every web browser shouldn't have this simple capability built in. Except that the consumer has not demanded it, and there seems to be a bit of a monopoly on Windoze/Mac web browsers.
Don't use transparent GIF. (Score:1)
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
it would block legitimate JSPs (Score:1)
&& url.indexOf(".js") == -1
wouldn't this effectively block other sites that use java server pages for legitimate purposes and not ad-serving?
Re:One way... (Score:2)
I've tried a few free and shareware simple web servers, but none of them are configurable enough to always return a 1x1 clear gif pixel to any request. Mostly they just sit there and eventually time out, which slows browsing to a crawl, especially on the cascaded pages which wait until all banner ads have been fetched before rendering the whole page.
the AC
IE5 and local proxy to kill cookies and banners (Score:1)
As I said, the software was free and comes with an evaluation of Smartfilter. It can operate without the list of "bad sites" and you can maintain your own list of "Don't serve these URLs". If you have trouble compiling Squid under Win32 this could be an alternative.
IE5 finally separated cookies into their security zones. While Netscape 4.0 always had the "only accept local cookies" feature that defeats these trackers, IE5 lets you permit cookies per security zone. For instance, disable all cookies for the Internet zone and permit cookies for "trusted sites." I also do this with Javascript and Java, as many sites that need cookies to operate also use enough Javascript that you want to enable it for them.
Finally IE5.5 has Netscape's "Accept only local cookies" switch. Finally they learn.
Custom ads? Please don't use GIF for custom ads (Score:1)
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
oops my fault (Score:1)
Re:One way... (Score:1)
-- Sig (120 chars) --
Your friendly neighborhood mIRC scripter.
Junkbusters and a decent blocklist (Score:1)
waldherr.org for a frequently updated blocklist.
A Better Junkbuster (Score:1)
With this approach the list of banner servers is alway out of date, is labor intensive, prone to error, and javascript pop-ups are not automatically handled/culled off by Junkbuster - whether or not they're advertisements, they're annoying, so this would be a very useful capability to have in such a utility as JB.
Junkbuster also doesn't do other things which could be very useful, e.g., culling "animated images, JavaScripts, Java applets."
Siemen's, A.G. has put out, non-commercial use is gratis, a utility (Webwasher) for Win/Macs that's just excellent, containing these features. It would be great to have Junkbuster do these kinds of things too.
The real nifty thing that Webwasher [trans-it.net] does is it does not rely on manual lists of banner servers to determine ad sources. Rather, it detects 3rd-party-domain supplied images.
WebWasher Product overview:
Me pican las bolas, man!
Thanks
Re:Mozilla has the anwser (Score:1)
iCab is a wonderful browser in many ways. Ad blocking, cookie management, all the things a browser should have. Plus my personal favorite. Shift-Option click opens a link in a new window in the background. When I read
iCab is available from http://www.icab.com or http://www.icab.de
It is still in beta, and has been for ever. The author has promised that there will always be a free (beer) version and he refuses to take money for it until he considers it ready. I've tried to send him money a couple times. He doesn't want it.
If you have access to a mac you should play with this thing. It has a lot of limitations (buggy script implementation and it crashes on a lot of https sites) but it is an amazing little program. But it has a lot of nice little features. It tells you if the source is compliant and even lists where it is missing.
Sweet.
BTW, I second the suggestion for Naviscope. I'm spoiled on the mac. With WebFree and iCab I never see an ad or pop-up. I was going nuts until I found Naviscope.
Mozilla has the anwser (Score:2)
http://www.adsubtract.com/ (Score:1)
Guidescope sees everywhere you surf (Score:2)
Junkbuster and most of the other suggestions here blocks the stuff you don't want at your own computer, without sending out any info.
Also, how does Guidescope intend to make money? Maybe the Opt-In thing will provide enough revenue because the database has more value to advertisers, but you have to visit their site again to get your ads.
The whole thing feels very strange. I suspect it's an advertising/marketing thing to lull users into a false sense of security.
Re:Useful links - one for Quietust :) (Score:1)
-- Sig (120 chars) --
Your friendly neighborhood mIRC scripter.
Re:Squid (Score:2)
You can do it with Squid by using a redirector like Sleezeball [linux.kz]. It's very slick, and in my case, it ended up replacing JunkBuster.
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Out! Out! Damn banner! (Score:2)
I've been using Proxomitron [cjb.net] in Windows for some time know. It can parse HTTP headers as well as content. I prefer it to firewall-based solutions since I can bypass the filtering with just a click in the system tray.
For Mac, you can use iCab (as mentioned but not named in the article). To add filtering to any Mac browser, there's WebFree [falken.net](68k) or WebWasher [webwasher.com](PPC)
But if you really want to kill 100% of annoying banner ads, use Lynx, w3m, links, or (Mac only) WannaBe^2.
No, this ALLOWS ".js", even if it's from ad sites. (Score:1)
This is because most browsers flub if they get blocked trying to load javascript. I allow it through therefore, but it can't annoy too much without any images anyway.