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As far as firewalls go, you could do worse than try AtGuard. Privacy should be less of an issue since WRQ (rhe creators) have given up on it and sold it to Symantec. An original copy would still send info (if it did at all) off to WRQ...

If you're a windows user like I'm forced to be, I strongly recommend AtGuard. It was recently bought out by Symantec, but I think you can still get trial versions and stuff.

The way this thing works is that it scans TCP/IP requests and never transmits the ones matching a certain pattern. I end up seeing less than 0.1% of the banner ads on the 'net, and when I do see one, I just add the relevant pattern to my block list and never see ads from that site again.

AtGuard also does one more amazing thing -- it stops animated GIFs from looping. About time!!

Along with AtGuard I use Cookie Pal. It basically intercepts the Netscape or IE cookie request dialog, and handles it. What makes it better than Netscape or IE is:

1. It keeps a list of sites to accept / reject with wildcards. I reject anything from *.doubleclick.net for example. Once that site is in your list, you never get asked about cookies from that site again.
2. On sites not found in your lists it asks: "Accept a cookie from www.spamsite.net?" with the options "Yes, No, Always, Never" and a checkbox allowing you to apply the always/never rules to *.spamsite.net. This flexibility far exceeds what browsers can do with their one-time Yes / No capability.

Eventually (once it's more stable and I have more time) I plan to get Mozilla and, if someone hasn't done it first, add all these features to the source. At one point I had read enough of the Mozilla source to know how to stop the animated GIFs but I never got around to adding the changes. Until then these tools are amazing and I can't recommend them enough.

Moderators: I know this is endorsement of commercial Windows products by a Windows user. I know it's not accompanied by the requisite amount of Slashdot Windows trashing or anti-commercial ranting, but let's face it, many of us have to use Windows, and many of us are willing to pay a few bucks for a good commercial tool when there's no open source alternative. Please help me get the word out and help people regain their privacy and freedom from advertising by bumping this up a couple of points. (And no, I'm not associated with either product, just a happy user).

To stop this stuff, and also save on bandwidth, I use AtGuard. It filters cookies on a per-site basis, and also blocks access to URLs containing certain sub-strings (which can also be configured on a per-site basis). Overall a really cool and useful program which deserves to be far better known.

Unfortunately I've just discovered that WRQ (the creators of AtGuard) have sold the rights to Symantec, and its now part of Norton Internet Security 2000 for almost twice the price of just AtGuard. But you get a virus scanner as well. Ho hum.

Paul.

However, there are a lot of bogus ads out there. For example, there is an ad cycling though /. for a vendor "giving away" an alpha linux system. Yet when you click to their site, no mention of it anywhere. Then there are ads like the incredably annoying "Punch the Monkey". There are a couple of sites which regularly have this ad running (Infoseek being one of them) which I no longer visit... at all.

The end result of all this? I've been using WRQ's AtGuard so I don't have to deal with ads, and in theory the privacy involving refers and cookies from sites which I don't want to give cookies to. Of course this doesn't help me on all systems I have access to, but it keeps a lid on my primary systems.

Does this harm the revenue stream to sites that I wish to support because I no longer click through? Probably. How much? Who knows. Do I like the added privacy protection? Definately!

Cookie Pal intercepts all cookie-setting attempts as they happen and lets you decide on a site-by-site basis whether to accept the cookie or not. It also lets you set wildcards so anything from *.doubleclick.net is rejected, and *.slashdot.org is accepted. Mine has a huge list of auto-reject sites, a small list of auto-accept sites. If the site I'm visiting isn't in either list, Cookie Pal prompts me with 4 options: Accept Always, Reject Always, Accept This Time, Reject This Time. I could just as easily have it auto-reject or auto-accept sites not in my lists. It's a very lightweight program with a simple but effective UI that I can't recommend enough.

AtGuard takes care of the banner ads (although it can do a lot more than that). It is basically a transparent firewall. Some of the more useful features: block images based on whole or partial URL matching (anything from doubleclick is rejected as is anything matching "*ad/*"), block HTTP_REFERRER fields, prevent animated gifs from looping...

Thanks to these tools I haven't seen an unwanted banner ad or animated gif in months, and the only cookies I have are the really useful ones that store preferences or enable shopping carts, etc.

I want to see if I can add some of these features to Mozilla (when I get more time) so everyone can have them available and so the internet-ad economy collapses. Call me a luddite, but I really miss the days when it was unheard of to even have a bit of promotional text on your web page.

Just as importantly, no server can read another server's data, each site reads only its own cookies

This isn't true if you leave Netscape's cookie settings at the default of "Accept All Cookies". You need to change it to "Accept only cookies which get sent back to the originating server" to prevent sites from "stealing" cookies of other sites with malicious javascript. I'm not sure how it works on IE but I'm sure it's just as easy with ActiveX giving out access to your entire hard drive to whomever wants it.

Now, as for tracking, cookies, and ads ... I've been fed up with this for a while now. I use AtGuard (Win32) to block ads, cookies, referrers, and access to most ports and transport protocols on my box. This does a few things, first is "secures" my swiss chees ... err I mean Windows box a little by allowing me to control all incoming and outgoing packet traffic (ICMP, IGMP, UDP, TCP, etc.) second, it lets me block cookies on a site by site basis. When a site wants to drop a cookie, the software asks me if I want to accept it or block cookies from that site. You'd be AMAZED how many sites use cookies that you'd never expect. Third, I use it to block referrers so if I'm at a page that I don't want public, it won't be due to someone parsing their access.log's looking for stuff. This also helps prevent any poorly written script that uses names/passwords in the URL from giving away my info. And lastly, I use it to block ads on many sites ... mainly those commercial sites (like ZDNet) which are simply overrun with ads. I usually allow ads on sites that really need the support for revenue.

And yes, I run ads and cookies on my site out of necessity, not marketing or demographic reasons.

Cool features include an estimate of the time saved by not downloading banner ads, a switch to block popup windows in Java(script), and a switch to modify animated GIFs so they only play once.

When something comes up it hasn't seen before it pops up a dialog asking how to deal with it. This is the firewall software for your grandmother, or at least as close as it can be.

Altogether a nice package. BTW, I have no relationship with these people other than as a satisfied customer.

Paul.

Paul.

• Act as a personal firewall, screening incoming and outgoing packets and connections. Strange to relate, there are script kiddies out there who will try to hack your home PC.
• Block HTTP cookies, referer, browser and email ("From") headers on a site-by-site basis,
• Block adverts (and also tell you how much bandwidth you have saved thereby)
• Fix animated GIFs to play once only instead of repeating

BTW, I have no connection with them other than as a satisfied customer.

Paul.