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I used to use DNSKong on my WinXP machine, it's an excellent dynamic hosts-type DNS proxy/filtering program which can blacklist (ie., IP resolves to 127.0.0.1) or whitelist by domain pattern. There is also OpenDNS, a more managed service of this type.

Later versions of CuteFTP supposedly don't contain Aureate. Supposedly. You may or may not believe them. Better to not use CuteFTP, any other Globalscape product, any Aureate/Radiate product, or any product that ever contained Aureate. Here's a old list of programs known to contain Aureate.

Aureate changed its name to Radiate. In 2001, they settled a class action over privacy issues.

Radiate tried again with "Go!Zilla". Some versions of Go!Zilla have adware and/or spyware. The current makers of GoZilla claim "The current Go!Zilla software contains no advertising. There are several older, out-of-date versions of Go!Zilla which contain advertising from 3rd parties." But then they say "Go!Zilla will make certain partner software programs available to you during the Go!Zilla trial version's installation. These products are not necessary to the function of Go!Zilla, and you may decide if wish to install them. Make sure you read the installation prompts carefully to insure you get the best installation for you. Each partner program has its own privacy policy, and Go!Zilla is careful to screen partners for product quality and responsible privacy policies."

Or, in other words, "we're going to load up your machine with adware if you're not very, very careful during the install."

Aureate/Radiate appears to be defunct. Unclear whether they went bankrupt, were acquired, or are on the lam.

AdAware can be helpful if your system is infected with Aureate/Radiate, although it may not find attacks downloaded via the security holes.

For more details about Aureate, Radiate, and CuteFTP, click here (long .pdf).

Pete, this sounds like a wonderful idea (using a hosts file). Might I ask how you do this, as I am curious about using the same setup on my end.

Go to Gorilla Design Studios: Using the Hosts File and read their explanation of how to use a HOSTS file to block out unwanted sites.

As to adblocking, I have no idea, I have been using eDexter for a long time and I have such a tweaked hosts file, I do not even use adblock when I run firefox.

There is one more thing I would like to know whether I can do through FF extensions. One thing that annoys me a lot whenever I run FF is that, unless I spend time creating a whitelist, I can either have all pop-ups open (even those that would display adds if I weren't blocking their images) or none of them, not even those I want to open. Opera has an option for this that is "Block unwanted pop-ups," that opens pop-ups when requested, but ignores pop-ups on page loads and the like. Can I do that in FF?

Thank you very much for your extension list, I'll give it a spin! I hope I get to love it, because I am feeling morally obliged to pay for Opera now, with all the use I'm giving to it.

Here's how to do it on Win2k:

step 1) try to kill off all the procs you can. Most malware will say "Access Denied", but some can be killed.

step 2) delete all the DLLs and activeX controls from your IE Downoads directory. Many of them will be held 'open' and won't be deletable.

step 3) check the start menu -> Startup folder. Delete any links from here that aren't familiar.

step 4) open your system services (from Computer Management; Administrative tools, whatever). Check for any services that look fishy. I typically sort them by status and look at the 'started'/active services.

step 5) open the registry (RegEdit) and search for "RunOnce"; directly above it will be "Run". We don't search the registry for "Run" because it appears like 1000 times. Delete any keys in the "Run" folder that don't look right. Search about 3 more times for this entry - it appears in multiple places.

step 6) unplug the machine (DON'T power it down). Some malware will try reinsert registry keys at shutdown. Worst case scenario here is that you get a checkdisk warning/error at startup.

step 7) start the machine back up in DOS mode (or Safety with DOS prompt). Go back to the Internet Explorer Downloads directory and delete the DLLs/ActiveX controls. They should get deleted now because the malware processes won't be holding the files open.

step 8) Reboot.

step 9) open the registry back up and see which processes re-inserted registry keys in the "Run" folder (see step 3 above).

I had one particularly nasty one (News.net) that Spybot couldn't delete. I finally killed it by using the process I described above. The trick with news.net, however, was to pull the plug IMMEDIATELY after deleting the registry key. The malware process re-inserts the registry key every 2 seconds, so I had to delete the key and pull the plug on the machine before it could re-insert the registry entry. One of the tricky things that news.net did was not allow me to search in RegEdit. So I used Spybot's startup/registry tool to remove the key. News.net was somehow able to circumvent Spybots registry blocker.

As I'm writing this, I'm using a Windows 2k(sp2) machine from 2001. It hasn't been remastered since then and it's my daily driver. Interestingly, I've never done a single Windows Update on it, and I have fewer problems with exploits and malware than I've had on the 4 other machines that I've had to remaster (again and again) that I ran Windows Update on frequently. Maybe none of the malware writers are wasting time with the old exploits because they figure they've all been patched. Luckily for me, by not doing Windows Update, I've saved myself from all of the Exploits that the new patches have created.

I'm running Office 2000, Firefox, and Thunderbird. I never ever use IE or Outlook, ever. Oh yeah, and I also use a modified hosts file (from http://accs-net.com/hosts/) for ad/malware blocking.

Oh yeah, and use TeaTimer and SpybotSD services to prevent new spyware/malware.

Happy computing.

And the same with Privoxy which is cross-platform and uses Perl compatible regexp rather than a custom language.
I do think that Proxomitron has a larger following though and might be a bit more flexible.
Also note that Proxomitron is no longer being actively developed since it was not open source and the developer tragically passed away. There is however a new open source project Proximodo which is trying to re-implement the functionality and claims to be cross-platform.

I use Privoxy along with a "hosts" file and I hardly see any ads (popup or embedded).

It's easy to roll your own Cute Cat ad replacer if you block sites in hosts. (A tiny server that listens at 127.0.0.1:80 and serves up random cute cat pictures when blocked ads are requested.) However, if you want something off the rack, try eDexter and fill up its picture directory with cute kitties.

Try adding a nice big hosts file to block all the ad servers. You get far less pop-ups/banners/sidebars, save bandwidth, and get less flashing shit on your screen. Here's a link to one with 10000 entries, but there are others out there too.

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>ping -n 1 0.0.0.0

Pinging 0.0.0.0 with 32 bytes of data:

Destination specified is invalid.

Ping statistics for 0.0.0.0:
Packets: Sent = 1, Received = 0, Lost = 1 (100% loss),

What pop-up ad? I use FireFox and block many ad servers in my "hosts" file.

Well, none of this really matters to me because I never see Google's ads, actually. Just put... well, I'm sure you all you know a good way to block ads so I'll just share the ad server addys.

pagead.google.akadns.net
pagead2.googlesyndication.com

Loop them back and yer good to go. YMMV

From the people that brought you (and are still bringing you) Kazaa Lite comes Supertrick, effectively a Hosts file used to redirect the servers that provide advertising to your loopback address. Also, if you're not already running a server, you can get eDexter to make any "blocked" into transparent GIFs that don't break the page. Should work pretty well for these background loading ads. :^)

From the people that brought you (and are still bringing you) Kazaa Lite comes Supertrick, effectively a Hosts file used to redirect the servers that provide advertising to your loopback address. Also, if you're not already running a server, you can get eDexter to make any "blocked" into transparent GIFs that don't break the page. Should work pretty well for these background loading ads. :^)

I recommend using eDexter along with the host file. It will clean up the pages a bit more, and load them a bit faster too.

Here are the programs you need to have a k-133t windows system.

1. AOL- DUH, they are the greatest ISP ever.

2. Webshots - Impress your friends with your changing wallpaper!

3. Hotbar - Skin Internet Explorer and Impress your friends!

4. AOHell This program will make you l33t!

5. Incredimail This makes your e-mail look k00lah then everyone elses.

6. Microsoft Outlook because all the anti-virus tools work with it. You don't want to use another e-mail client, you might get a virus!

7. Comet Cursor. Makes your cursor R0x0r.

8. Intruder Alert 99 You need a firewall, the internet isn't a safe place!

9. Gator Gator is an awesome program that helps u remember ur passwords. This way u don't have to fill out stupid forms!

10. BO Server The guys in my gaming clan sent me this, they said it would improve my FPS, and make windows run faster. I think it did!

Here are the programs you need to have a k-133t windows system.

1. AOL- DUH, they are the greatest ISP ever.

2. Webshots - Impress your friends with your changing wallpaper!

3. Hotbar - Skin Internet Explorer and Impress your friends!

4. AOHell This program will make you l33t!

5. Incredimail This makes your e-mail look k00lah then everyone elses.

6. Microsoft Outlook because all the anti-virus tools work with it. You don't want to use another e-mail client, you might get a virus!

7. Comet Cursor. Makes your cursor R0x0r.

8. Intruder Alert 99 You need a firewall, the internet isn't a safe place!

9. Gator Gator is an awesome program that helps u remember ur passwords. This way u don't have to fill out stupid forms!

10. BO Server The guys in my gaming clan sent me this, they said it would improve my FPS, and make windows run faster. I think it did!

This will all be blindingly obvious to most readers of /., but just for the record:

Don't use your personal email address for anything online. Don't post to usenet with it, don't use it to register for anything, don't ever use it where there's any chance of it being sold to a third party or picked up by a web crawler. Use a free throwaway web-based account like hotmail or yahoo, that's what they're for. I have a verizon.net primary email address, and I've never received a single piece of spam from it.

However, I still have a forward-only email address from my university circa 1992. Back then, there was no spam and that address has to be on every spammer's list on the planet. I still get a legitimate email every year or two, but spam outnumbers these by at least 10,000 to 1. SpamAssassin does a surprisingly good job of identifying the garbage.

I also use a proxy to surf the web, as well as a large hosts file that reroutes requests to adservers to 127.0.0.1:80, combined with a utility that returns a transparent 1x1 gif to any request on port 80. And of course I use mozilla to block pop-ups and whatnot. I'm so used to surfing in this way that I always recoil in horror when I have to use IE on a naked, unprotected box. How on earth can anyone stand it?

As for more traditional types of spam such as telemarketers, there's the national do not call list. It's free, so there's nothing to lose. You'll also want to check out the many excellent resources at the Junkbusters website. One of the most useful features is a Junkbusters Declare page, which builds custom form letters for you that you can use to opt out of Direct Marketing Association junkmail, as well as telling your financial institutions, etc., not to sell your name to third parties. I used it, it's painless, and my privacy is protected.

Of course, it would be much better if we didn't have to jump through hoop after hoop just to get through the day without being pestered by morons.

Rather crude, but highly effective.

this is what you do, and more precisely and more corresponding to the attitude on this site: RTFM

Wanna party like it's 1993? Just: Use mozilla to disable pop-ups and nosy cookies. Use the proximitron or filterproxy, depending on your OS. Use a big-ass hosts file and edexter (or eDexterJavaDog for non-windows users) if you want.

I use nt at work, linux at home, and I don't do ads. Bottom line, WE control what happens on our computers. Let's not forget that we have this power, or that we're going to have to fight to keep it.

Wanna party like it's 1993? Just: Use mozilla to disable pop-ups and nosy cookies. Use the proximitron or filterproxy, depending on your OS. Use a big-ass hosts file and edexter (or eDexterJavaDog for non-windows users) if you want.

I use nt at work, linux at home, and I don't do ads. Bottom line, WE control what happens on our computers. Let's not forget that we have this power, or that we're going to have to fight to keep it.

Wanna party like it's 1993? Just: Use mozilla to disable pop-ups and nosy cookies. Use the proximitron or filterproxy, depending on your OS. Use a big-ass hosts file and edexter (or eDexterJavaDog for non-windows users) if you want.

I use nt at work, linux at home, and I don't do ads. Bottom line, WE control what happens on our computers. Let's not forget that we have this power, or that we're going to have to fight to keep it.

There's a decent tutorial, including sample hosts files, and instructions for various OS's here . Their hosts list is kept fairly up to date.

Do you have your hosts file up-to-date ?

Just an alternative to seeing all those broken-image icons:

For those folks using a Microsoft OS, there's a little proggie called eDexter. Basically, it works in conjunction with a nice HOSTS file, and sets up a teeny-tiny server at 127.0.0.1 - it fills all HTTP requests to localhost with a 1x1 transparent GIF, or an image or your own choosing.

There's also a Mac version available, but I've not tried it.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with the creator of this software.

To stop abusive advertising sites, just add them to your hosts file.

http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/what_is_hosts.html

A proper analogy would be:
"I don't approve of my daughter's heroin addiction, but I give her clean needles so she doesnt get AIDs."

Try my host file project [remember.mine.nu], i try to update it daily/weekly and makes just about every other hosts file redundant

Some of this poster's content was fairly apparently stolen from my two-year-old website. See my message about that here and here.

I've never posted a link to this message board about my website any of the times that hosts has been brought up, but I felt I must take a stand against this apparent plagiarism.

Also, for the record, anyone who has asked to link to my site or to copy text from it has been granted that permission. All you have to do is ask and respect other peoples' work. Sheeesh.

internet explorer didn't contuinally tell you "this page may not display as intended - click ok to continue" ...

eDexter from my website will take care of that problem for you.

Try my host file project remember.mine.nu

Your hosts file project? Much of the text under your linux section is ripped verbatim from a web page that I have had up for nearly two years and wrote entirely myself.

I don't claim to have invented the process, but I sure didn't steal anyone's text, either. You obviously added some content to your site that did not exist on mine, but stealing the linux section was quite the heinous act.

Compare this section on your site:
Linux users note :
If your Hosts file is not in the above locations , then you will need to find your existing hosts file. If it is completely empty, you can replace it with this Hosts file. If it is not empty, which will probably be the case, you will want to be sure to save any information that is in there is safe and/or make a backup copy of your current hosts file.
If there are currently entries in your existing hosts file, then open this Hosts file. Copy the text from it to add to the bottom of any existing text in your current hosts file. This will ensure that your current entries will still work for you, and that you do not corrupt your network properties.
Try one of these solutions to enable

Try logging out and logging back in first.
Do a "killall -hup inetd" (without the quotes) while having root privileges, which will restart the inetd process and you should not require a reboot.
In BSD or Mandrake (or your Linux distro), you can try opening a console window and using these commands (no quotes):
"telinit 3", to switch from runlevel 5 to runlevel 3
"telinit 5", which will restart many daemones en route to putting you back in runlevel 5 and into the GUI

If none of those work, then you may have to reboot for the file to take effect.

... with this section of my site. Notice any similarities? What a thief you appear to be.

Also compare these two pages:
Your site.

My site.

You also ran into a problem by quoting an old page on my site that incorrectly referred to the problem service as the "DNS Server" rather than the "DNS Client."

Quite a few people have reported that there is no Win2k service called DNS Server. They report that it should be the DNS Client service

Perhaps if you had asked to link to my site you would now have the correct information on yours?

Kindly remove any and all portions of your site that you apparently so blatantly stole from mine.

Can you say, "busted?"

Try my host file project remember.mine.nu

Your hosts file project? Much of the text under your linux section is ripped verbatim from a web page that I have had up for nearly two years and wrote entirely myself.

I don't claim to have invented the process, but I sure didn't steal anyone's text, either. You obviously added some content to your site that did not exist on mine, but stealing the linux section was quite the heinous act.

Compare this section on your site:
Linux users note :
If your Hosts file is not in the above locations , then you will need to find your existing hosts file. If it is completely empty, you can replace it with this Hosts file. If it is not empty, which will probably be the case, you will want to be sure to save any information that is in there is safe and/or make a backup copy of your current hosts file.
If there are currently entries in your existing hosts file, then open this Hosts file. Copy the text from it to add to the bottom of any existing text in your current hosts file. This will ensure that your current entries will still work for you, and that you do not corrupt your network properties.
Try one of these solutions to enable

Try logging out and logging back in first.
Do a "killall -hup inetd" (without the quotes) while having root privileges, which will restart the inetd process and you should not require a reboot.
In BSD or Mandrake (or your Linux distro), you can try opening a console window and using these commands (no quotes):
"telinit 3", to switch from runlevel 5 to runlevel 3
"telinit 5", which will restart many daemones en route to putting you back in runlevel 5 and into the GUI

If none of those work, then you may have to reboot for the file to take effect.

... with this section of my site. Notice any similarities? What a thief you appear to be.

Also compare these two pages:
Your site.

My site.

You also ran into a problem by quoting an old page on my site that incorrectly referred to the problem service as the "DNS Server" rather than the "DNS Client."

Quite a few people have reported that there is no Win2k service called DNS Server. They report that it should be the DNS Client service

Perhaps if you had asked to link to my site you would now have the correct information on yours?

Kindly remove any and all portions of your site that you apparently so blatantly stole from mine.

Can you say, "busted?"

Try my host file project remember.mine.nu

Your hosts file project? Much of the text under your linux section is ripped verbatim from a web page that I have had up for nearly two years and wrote entirely myself.

I don't claim to have invented the process, but I sure didn't steal anyone's text, either. You obviously added some content to your site that did not exist on mine, but stealing the linux section was quite the heinous act.

Compare this section on your site:
Linux users note :
If your Hosts file is not in the above locations , then you will need to find your existing hosts file. If it is completely empty, you can replace it with this Hosts file. If it is not empty, which will probably be the case, you will want to be sure to save any information that is in there is safe and/or make a backup copy of your current hosts file.
If there are currently entries in your existing hosts file, then open this Hosts file. Copy the text from it to add to the bottom of any existing text in your current hosts file. This will ensure that your current entries will still work for you, and that you do not corrupt your network properties.
Try one of these solutions to enable

Try logging out and logging back in first.
Do a "killall -hup inetd" (without the quotes) while having root privileges, which will restart the inetd process and you should not require a reboot.
In BSD or Mandrake (or your Linux distro), you can try opening a console window and using these commands (no quotes):
"telinit 3", to switch from runlevel 5 to runlevel 3
"telinit 5", which will restart many daemones en route to putting you back in runlevel 5 and into the GUI

If none of those work, then you may have to reboot for the file to take effect.

... with this section of my site. Notice any similarities? What a thief you appear to be.

Also compare these two pages:
Your site.

My site.

You also ran into a problem by quoting an old page on my site that incorrectly referred to the problem service as the "DNS Server" rather than the "DNS Client."

Quite a few people have reported that there is no Win2k service called DNS Server. They report that it should be the DNS Client service

Perhaps if you had asked to link to my site you would now have the correct information on yours?

Kindly remove any and all portions of your site that you apparently so blatantly stole from mine.

Can you say, "busted?"

For the uninitiated (and for those who aren't forced to use Win at work), eDexter acts as a local-only HTTP server (not accessible through the Net)which replaces the empty boxes caused by 127.0.0.1 in Hosts and stops the resulting time-outs. eDexter has its own image for the space that an ad uses. The default image is a 43-byte GIF (thin pink bar).

Better yet, it doesn't interfere with a locally-running "server" <gag, cough, choke> like IIS or MS Personal Web Server, which some of us also have to run at work. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

woof.

Of COURSE I'd rather run SuSE (even if it would get me sued), but my company wouldn't exist without closed source. And our security is almost as good as Microsoft's! Like Krusty said, don't blame me; they shove all of this money in my hand!

Hello,

eDexter is a pretty darn good program.

In addition to the Windows version, there is also a Java version of the program available called eDexter Java Dog which runs under Linux, MacOS, etc. available from the same site.

Note, though, that this isn't the author's actual web site, which has several other interesting programs on it, like DNS Kong.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Try using one of these cleanup tools especially Spider to eliminate all IE cookies, history, cached files, and index.dat files. Some require a reboot, but you'd be amazed how much history can still be found in the dat files and cache even after 'Clear History' and 'Delete Files' have been used.

Another thing you can do is modify the hosts file on your machine. I cut down the ads by a tremendous amount by doing that. (I did it for my father as well - two minutes work, two weeks of no-questions.)

I snagged mine down from this link at Gorilla Designs who I don't know, but figure hey, might as well mention who it is. It keeps both Mozilla and IE mostly free of ads at the same time. (You do need to keep it updated, though, but that's simple with a text editor.)

IMHO, read some HOWTO's, this service is completely redundant. Below is a little addendum to the previous post: - Protect your PC from malicious hackers: Recompile the kernel with all security options, deactivate all unneccessary services like telnetd or ftpd.
ipchains will do nicely
- Prevent Websites from tracking your activities: Use mozilla or conqueror with cookies disabled, or set a per-site cookie policy. Use a proxy to disguise your IP if you have broadband with static IP.
for broadband and dialup: safeweb
- Secure your passwords and personal information: One word: Encription. Encript the data in your file system.
An encrypted filesystem is very secure but not for mortals.
- Block unwanted ads and speed up browsing: Use mozilla with a per-syte image policy. reject everithing that comes from doubleclick.net.
just edit your hosts file and add some entries from hostsforlinux

I've NEVER purchased anything on the Internet via a banner ad. I think I've clicked on maybe ten or twelve banner ads over the course of my entire online life, and most of those were back in the mid-90's, when many ads actually lead you to interesting sites without trying to track you, spy on you, or steal your personal information. These days, I rarely see banner ads, and I never see those from the major ad networks. I've fiddled with various blocking tools over the last year or two. My favorite has been The Proxomitron but with my cable modem, the real-time processing of most web pages makes the speed of my browsing unbearably slow. I finally settled on using the Windows hosts file to block most known ad servers, and Edexter to serve up fake images so Netscape doesn't crap out trying to download a nonexistant banner ad on every page I visit. It doesn't catch everything, and it doesn't block the other annoyances that The Proxomitron can be programmed to catch, but it also doesn't affect the speed of my browser.

See http://www.smartin-designs.com/ for a great prewritten hosts file and plenty of advice for using it. If you do use the hosts file to block banners, be sure to use eDexter as well, especially if you use Netscape.

DennyK