How to block ads, banners, 3rd party cookies, page counters, web bugs and hijackers

[catweazel]

Your hosts file sits in /etc/hosts and probably looks like this:

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127.0.0.1       localhost
127.0.1.1       Fenella

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters

Give it a huge upgrade to stop web-nasties by opening this link and copy everything from this line onwards:

Code: Select all

# [Start of entries generated by MVPS HOSTS]

In a terminal, sudo nano -w /etc/hosts and paste the text at the end of the file.

ctrl-o, enter to save, then ctrl-x to exit.

All done.

The file is updated regularly so if web security is important to you, check the link every month for updates.

If you'd like to know more, see this link. It's Windwoes oriented but it'll give you a good idea of what's going on.

Edit: To automate the download process and the update of the hosts file, see this link. Thanks to user majpooper for the tip.

[sammiev]

Thanks testing it now.

[Resistor]

Thanks, catweazel.

I've often wondered how it worked in Linux.
Do we need to do anything with the other Host files?

[catweazel]

Do we need to do anything with the other Host files?

No.

[Pierre]

these type of Host File Lists are useful, but you do need to constantly update them . .

other folks just use a browser add-on like No Script to do the job.
& there is nothing wrong with the "belt & braces" approach, either.

[Resistor]

I appreciate the insight, catweazel.
I know more now, than I did on Saturday...

[Resistor]

these type of Host File Lists are useful, but you do need to constantly update them . .

other folks just use a browser add-on like No Script to do the job.
& there is nothing wrong with the "belt & braces" approach, either.

That be me... belt & braces.
I'm glad to no longer be running with a largely useless hosts file.
It has been a long time...

[Aleron Ives]

Manually pasting this into your hosts file every month seems rather inelegant, but I guess it is the most straightforward and cross-platform-friendly solution if MVPs doesn't want to ask people to run extra peerblocking software.

[catweazel]

Manually pasting this into your hosts file every month seems rather inelegant

To automate the download process and the update of the hosts file, see this link.

[Aleron Ives]

I guess I should have chosen my words more carefully. Using your hosts file for this purpose seems rather inelegant.

[catweazel]

Using your hosts file for this purpose seems rather inelegant.

<shrug>

[Moem]

I don't see what's inelegant about it. If you already know you aren't interested in a certain portion of what the internet offers, why not simply deny it entry to your computer?

[Aleron Ives]

I was under the impression that the hosts file was intended for addresses that DNS can't resolve, e.g. the hostnames of the machines on your LAN, so you can access them easily. This seems like a task best suited to browser-based blocking software, where you could use features such as analytics to see which filters are being used frequently and to prune filters that have no hits to speed up the process of checking the blocklist on each page you visit. I'm not really sure how you would expect these entities to be accessing your PC other than through a browser, so globally blocking them in a manner that gives no feedback as to the efficacy of each filter seems a bit heavy handed an inefficient IMHO. Am I missing some added benefit of doing it this way?

[Moem]

It's easy. Set it and forget it. I can see why you'd call it 'heavy handed', but 'inefficient'... no. It works very well and there is very little effort, how can it be inefficient?

[Flemur]

I used to use the 'hosts' file but it doesn't support wild-cards; 'privoxy' is a lot easier once you get it set up.

[syg00]

Very last century. I park a pi3 as a getway/router so the entire house can be protected without having to constantly update each machine individually.

Each to their own.

[majpooper]

A very simple script and a cron and you are done - what's the big deal?

[sammiev]

I did setup a script and cron job to run each day but you can also setup to receive an email when a update to the hosts file is updated.

Then run the script as required than each day. It seems last update was mid Sept.

Just saying.

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/updates.htm

[catweazel]

I was under the impression that the hosts file was intended for addresses that DNS can't resolve

Clearly it's also intended for addresses you don't want to resolve.

This seems like a task best suited to browser-based blocking software, where you could use features such as analytics to see which filters are being used frequently and to prune filters that have no hits to speed up the process of checking the blocklist on each page you visit.

Nonsense. The file is loaded and the list checked in microseconds flat.

[all41]

hey catweasel how can you tell if it works?
please don't plonk me