How to block most ads and malware sites!

How to block most ads & some malware sites.​

1. Introduction
   
   In this guide I will teach you how to block most of the sites that provide the ads and a few detected servers around the world that distribute malware using the hosts found at mvps.org in Windows ; I will teach you how to setup it and check if it's working once you are done. This might be a simple guide, but a very useful one. Note: I will post the location of the hosts file for Linux and Mac, you can follow the guide using the programs of you operating system.
   
   
2. Understanding how it works
   • Host File:
     
     "The hosts file is a computer file used in an operating system to map hostnames to IP addresses. The hosts file is a plain-text file and is traditionally named hosts." From Wikipedia.org
     
     "The Hosts file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. This file is loaded into memory (cache) at startup, then Windows checks the Hosts file before it queries any DNS servers, which enables it to override addresses in the DNS. This prevents access to the listed sites by redirecting any connection attempts back to the local (your) machine. Another feature of the HOSTS file is its ability to block other applications from connecting to the Internet, providing the entry exists.
     
     You can use a HOSTS file to block ads, banners, 3rd party Cookies, 3rd party page counters, web bugs, and even most hijackers. This is accomplished by blocking the connection(s) that supplies these little gems" From mvps.org
     
     
   • Location of the hosts file:
     • Linux: /etc/hosts
     • Windows: %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\
     • Mac OS X: /private/etc/hosts
     
     
     
     
   • Editing hosts file: You must use Administrator/root privileges, and just use a text editor.
     
     
     
   
   
3. Getting the hosts
   
   We'll be using the plain text file provided by mvps.org at http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.txt
   
   You must copy from
   
   Code:

   #start of lines added by WinHelp2002
   # [Misc A - Z]

   
   
   To the end of the file
   
   
   
   You can now save the file!
   
   
   
   
4. Checking it works!
   We must now ping any address that it's on the file. Type this on cmd/terminal/ssh
   
   Code:

   ping images.adster.com

   It should show something like this:
   
   

Enjoy 0.00001% ads browsing with more malware protection!

Thanks for reading!

 

Nice guide. Thanks for adding the pictures and colored text. 9/10!

 

Thanks for your comment.

 

Nice guide. Thanks!

Easy to understand, precise, and to the point. (y)

9/10

 

Thanks for you comment Vibes

 

the bad thing about this is that can slow down you browsing speed it can also cause a process named svchosts to use a lot of ram and cpu speed.

Oh and there is a program you can use for this.
Its called hostsman and it has a couple of blacklists in it. you can also auto update it with this program.

 

I did a test, and even though I have 10+ svchost.exe process, all are at 0% CPU usage, one once in a while only one go to 1-2%

 

Great guide, keep up the good work.

 

Thanks for your comment kxracer.

 

good guide, thanks. I will try this sometime

 

Thanks for you comment Krypton

 

Hey, thanks a ton for the guide One question though, when I do the ping part in cmd, I'm getting 2 packets received, 2 lost. Why is that? =]

 

Thanks for your comment.

What's the address being pinged 127.0.0.1?

Add me in msn

 

Added, thanks

edit: btw, yes it's pinging 127.0.0.1

 

Hey great guide man

 

Hey man, this is a pretty simple guide! You should spice it up, with like programs like adblock plus or like add colour as its so bland it should be changed bro

 

Hosts file isn't just for 'blocking' it's to assist with ns assistance / forwarding.

Also ping gets resolved into an IP so you'd be blocking the whole server. Hardly effective. You should use DNSutil/Bind's utilities for that purpose, you could also output a zone transfer with '>> zone.txt' and you'll have a nice block list.

Also hosts doesn't do domain name, it can only handle IP resolution so using it as an 'add blocker' typically creates more problems than it does solutions.

Not to hate on your guide but I don't recomend following OP's instructions, try updating firefox instead?

1ce

 

I use AdBlock and some custom rules with Firefox, but blocking with this has worked pretty good, I've had to remove a few in some cases though.

Thanks for the feedback

 

but you know you see this is not good as you will not understand what is blocking if you block it with the hosts file

 

Firefox does pretty good but every now and again one slips through.

The problem is that you'd be blocking the whole IP and consequently everything the DNS could provide for you, and not just by socket value. Would work a little like this:

You ping an add and ping returns with the IP, so you use hosts to redirect it to localhost. It works, but only until you realize you just blocked google because the domain name you pinged is sharing an IP off google's server.

A decent Firewall will do the same thing, if you do netstat -an -p TCP you should get the socket it's sent on, 80, :8080, etc) and you can simply block web adds and leave other services open.

​

works pretty good.


Sincerely, 1ce