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This code, executed on a dd-wrt router, will give all your clients 30 seconds of nothing during commercials when watching Hulu videos. It will block most other browser ads also but what the hell... Works really well with Slashdot.

Just add it to your startup section and enjoy a nearly ad-free internet.

----
logger WAN UP Script Executing
sleep 5
test -s /tmp/dlhosts
if [ $? == 1 ] ; then
echo -e "#!/bin/sh\nwget -O - http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.txt | grep 127.0.0.1 | tr -d '\015\032' | sed -e '2,\$s/127.0.0.1/0.0.0.0/g' -e 's/[[:space:]]*#.*$//' -e '2,\$s/0.0.0.0 localhost$/127.0.0.1 localhost/g' -e '2,\$s/0.0.0.0 pagead.*.googlesyndication.com//g' | grep 0.0 > /tmp/hosts\nlogger DOWNLOADED http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.txt\nkillall -1 dnsmasq" > /tmp/dlhosts
chmod 777 /tmp/dlhosts /tmp/dlhosts
fi
ln -s /tmp/hosts /etc/hosts
echo "45 23 * * 5 root /tmp/dlhosts" >> /tmp/crontab
-----

I just use http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

I've been using a hosts file since around 2003. It blocks out all those ads, popups, spyware,adware, stops alot of virii from calling home, you name it. I scan my computer about once a month, and I haven't had any of the 'serious outbreaks' of adware like all my friends. They all swear by their software programs to block it(ultimately, they always end up reformatting when they cant quite get rid of them all) but my solution uses no resources and doesn't require 'scanning' for them regularly.

I use it on my parent's computer and only update it once a year at Christmas. Even with only updating once a year they haven't gotten any adware/spyware yet, and it's been 3 years.

I highly recommend it. Give it a try, there's nothing to lose but the crapware.

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

It's in this (useful, but long) one:
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

Yes, it would be nicer if it was an easy configuration item in the Microsoft-provided drivers. However, there exists workarounds.

Also, Wikipedia has a link to a page for disabling the F-lock key. The criticism about the space bar key being somewhat sticky is valid, although I found that the problem slowly worked itself out over about a month use.

Just another thought. If possible, why not get a list of malicious websites, install Squid and blacklist them, and configure IE/Firefox/whatever to surf behind the proxy service? Such a list can be obtained from a variety of places. (e.g. the one at http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.txt -- it just takes a little shell/Perl/Python/whatever programming to transform such a hosts file to a plain blacklist suitable for inclusion in a Squid ACL. The original purpose of the list I linked is to be used as the Windoze equivalent of /etc/hosts, which I think is a bad idea.)

I do work occasionally for the elderly in setting up WinX computers and I regularly donate my services to various individuals.
Apart from setting up their desktops as I've detailed in a previous post http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1072163&cid=26221671
you need to install some helper apps.
Avast Antivirus can be set to automatically delete/quarantine anything it finds with no user action. AVG 8 free doesn't scan chat/webcam so stay away from that if they want to use it.
Find a good Hosts file: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm is very good.
Point their DNS to OpenDns http://www.opendns.com/ and use their filtering to stop phishing and other bad stuff. It also allows you to easily make customized error pages in case they find themselves in hot water.
I would not switch off Windows Security Centre and have updates set at a reasonable time on automatic.
Windows Media Player 11 is a must and set it to do everything.
Also, set their screensaver to My Pictures Slideshow. They really appreciate that as many have pics of grandkids etc.
Some elderly need good JPG editor. The easliest to use is Microsoft's PhotoEd which came in early versions of Office, Microsoft Office Picture Manager has now replaced it. It is much better in some regards as it can open larger jpegs, but the gui is considerably different. A bit of training helps. HP scanning software is very good as it has a decent editor inbuilt. Also Picassa 3 is my choice for a freebie.

Open up their My Pictures folder and set it up in Film Strip view and to open maximized.

IE vs Firefox: I always install Firefox and set it as default. But some apps decide to run IE, even though it is not the default. IE 6 is preferable here as it is very similar to Firefox's gui. But for security's sake, IE7 should be used and some more training required in case it pops up inadvertently. If you remove the shortcuts and pin Firefox to the Start menu, then that will be fine.

One or Two clicks?
This is a hard one. Some elderly can't do a double-click fast enough or accurately enough as they move the mouse off the icon by the time the 2nd click comes along. So you have to change the mouse timing (Control Panel/Mouse Properties/Double-Click Speed), or use the single-click approach. Try and stay away from the single click, because if they double click then most probably an editor of some description open up. This is particularly bad for pictures, especially when they are in Flimstrip mode or trying to copy and paste any other file.
The other thing is to remind them to click the icon and not the words below, or otherwise they'll start editing the filename (as Rename) instead of opening something up.
Most elderly switch things completely off. That includes monitors, speakers, modems, so check the BIOS battery every year.
They also need a checklist in turning things on. This sounds dumb, but the calls I get that the internet doesn't work because they switched their modem on last gets annoying. Switch the modem on first. By the time the modem is connected, the computer has booted and they're ready to go.

Not the same but Privoxy or blocking using your hosts file serve the same purpose. http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

Try Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm This cuts most of the blasted animated ads at various websites. And blocks much of the cookie monitoring websites as well. Tony Toews

And if you are not a Firefox user. Become one.

Some extra things you can do on top of most other things
1) http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm will block out many things without even trying to fetch them.
2) Use privoxy or junkbuster
3) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1672 ImgLikeOpera This extension is very useful for non broadband users
4) If you have more then 1 PC, install a proxy server. Or perhaps using your providers proxy server won't count for as much (a long shot, but worth ti check out)
5) Use a webinterface for your mail without too many adds, like Gmail.
6) Read /. with the "Low Bandwith", simple design and such set
7) Use Lynx, links or w3m to browse most sites and only use firefox for those that actually need it.

Do use all of the things, not just one or two. Only when they conflict yiu need to choose.

I don't know what OS you're running, but this will work with any of them. Go search for a host file blacklist that routes known ads/spam/flash to localhost. Here is the one I use:

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

Instructions are on the page. This saves a huge amount of bandwidth in addition to the time spent waiting around for slow adservers before the page loads.

It probably blocks some slashverts, but oh well. Life isn't fair.

-b

Me three ;)
Here too, usually when my browser is loading a page slowly, it's a spam domain it's waiting for.
It used to be better when my hosts file was a bit more up to date, maybe I ought to pay a new visit to wmvps for a new one.

I've been using Firefox on Windows since it was called Phoenix 0.2 (though I spend most of my time now in Safari on a Mac) and have never installed AdBlock. Why? Because an ad-blocking /etc/hosts file does most of the work AND works on all browsers on the machine. It's not perfect but it's very effective and I'm always amazed at how many ads my most-visited sites have whenever I view them on someone else's machine.

Here's a review from a non-Windows fanboi: Chrome's performance absolutely kicks ass. Sure, I had to boot my Windows box to see it, but I am thoroughly impressed so far. And I'm sure I'll be more impressed the more time goes by if their "it won't get painfully slow over time" claim is true. I can't wait 'till the OS X version is out. (Though my true hope is for Apple to say "Holy crap! This is a great idea! We'll use this as the basis for Safari 5!")

Chrome made me discover different methods of ad blocking. Windows "HOSTS" file with every ad server directed to 127.0.0.1 seems to work well. See here.

So many posts here saying that they won't use any browser that doesn't have Adblock Plus type functionality. While that particular extension does rock, you can achieve similar results with any browser or app by loving your /etc/hosts or c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file with this http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm or similar solutions. Great success.

HOSTS file a nice blacklist of all ads/virus sites. Doesn't have to be just Windows either. I find it gets rid of about 99% of ads. I install it on any/every PC I touch if I'm browsing the web. Simple and easy

Just curious, how would Vista respond if you say

edit \Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

in a CMD window? Is there a way to elevate 'edit'? Do you have to elevate 'CMD' first?

Speaking of /etc/hosts, I'm always happy to plug the best thing in the world. They've got info for every version of Windows out there--locations, how to edit, etc. Duh, there's my answer--looks like you need to elevate CMD.

I've always found something like this or this is pretty effective.

Yes, it works fine after a crash. I've grown accustomed to having Saft save me when Safari craps out for years now; glad Apple finally implemented this. And yes, it would be REALLY great if they'd advertise it a bit! (I just found out about it a month or two ago.) BTW, works with Safari 3/OS X 10.4.11 as well.

If you already have it working, you should be able to quit, upgrade (say, from 10.5.3 to 10.5.4) and then launch and all should be good.

Also be aware that it won't work with some pages--if you had to submit a form to get to a page, or if it relies heavily on JavaScript/AJAX, if you're logged into your bank, etc. But it works 99% of the time.

And if you're using PithHelmet to block ads, I suggest learning about /etc/hosts It's a different kind of adblocking approach; one advantage is it works at the system level and blocks ads in ALL browsers.

And yes, I'm also waiting for them to copy Firefox's "Reopen recently closed tabs" feature. :-) But the history menu is usually good enough, especially since the menu itself is all-inclusive. No, I haven't played with FF's AwesomeBar yet.

Excel 2007 can open a spreadsheet with 16,000 columns and 1 million rows. What's New in Excel 2007

Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File

Works very well on this 3ghz Win2k machine, had to remove it from my Asus Eee with XP because when starting the browser up it would pause for a couple of minutes whilst it digested the massive hosts file, so now I manually enter in unwanted advertisment URLs (from sites I regularly visit like slashdot/TheRegister etc.) into the Eee's hosts file and that works nicely as I very rarely see pop-ups and the browser window on the 7" screen has more signal (article) to noise (spam) ratio.

I block it at the hosts level too (thanks to these guys) because whenever Safari is pinwheeling on a site, it's usually because it's waiting for some bullshit like this. Ooh, wow, you're going to slow down my browsing experience for something totally worthless like this? No thanks. I'm close to blocking Digg for the same reason--every so often those little embedded counters take *forever* to come in.

Great, you just opened the door for all the smug replies about how people haven't seen ads in years because of adblock plus.

Better than ad blocking software is using a Hosts file. Hosts files are great for blocking unwanted parasitic websites.

I stopped reading Dilbert years ago, when a flash Coke ad appeared on the site complete with sound effects. ("SSSSCHLUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!1111ONEOMFGNOOB")

That was about the same time I installed Proxomitron, which was the awesome sauce. It's gone now, but I use this instead: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm It blocks almost all the ads on the internet.

In your hosts file, point "pc-on-internet.com" to 66.35.250.150, then each time a window pops up treat it as a helpful reminder to take an ergonomic break.

I know it was a joke, but you hit on a good thing to try: a HOSTS file that could block many of these things from getting out.

Just send her this:
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm ...and walk her though running the bat file.

A big part of blocking recommendations created by third parties like doubleclick and such is a good hosts file.

A good hosts file can also keep your computer out of trouble when websites get booby-trapped to send you to another site that installs malware.

Here is a good how-to and a pretty good hosts file:

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

You can fix a whole lot of that advertising by setting up your hosts file. It works on Windows, Linux, and MacOS. This site is just one of many that will tell you how to do it and get you started with a pretty long list of useless advertisers that you won't have to see any more...

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

As an aside, it can also help keep your computer from accidentally visiting sites that install crapware/spyware/adware on your system.

But the only computer that I have ever bought already built and loaded with software from the manufacturer is my Mac laptop. All of my other systems - both past and present - were built from parts and that is the only way I'll ever do it. There are no subsidies and no Windows preinstalled. I get to choose what parts I want, put my money into performance where it is important to me, and get parts that are compatible and interchangeable that don't tie me to some warehouse vendor.

I know that path isn't for everyone but it works very well for me. And if I was to ever buy some Windows-compatible laptop with stuff preinstalled for me, the first thing I would do is reformat it and install only what I want. If the company provides no way for me to do that (i.e. OS only provided on part of the disk partition and already preconfigured to include the crapware), I simply would not buy it.

Just FYI, according to this site: http://visio.mvps.org/Excel_2007.htm Excel 2007's limits are:

16k Columns
1M Rows

With the highest possible cell being: XFD1048576 (In Excel 2003, it was IV65536).

(Now comes the obligatory "you should be using a database!" post.)

Maybe someone will be at least be able to create a good webkit-based browser? If nothing else, I'd love to have the ability to "right-click" (press-and-hold, like on a PocketPC) on a link and open in a new window, or save a file (assuming they give you some kind of local file storage.) Plus a button to force it to render minimally-formatted pages at 100% (maybe insert a 'viewport' tag into the document?) instead of having to pan-and-zoom. (It renders them OK in landscape, but I'd like to force that behavior in portrait mode as well.) That would make it great for reading documentation.

Also, it should be able to use a custom /etc/hosts file to block ads or some other adblocking scheme. I block ads on my desktop, so not only do I hate seeing them on my iPhone, I really hate seeing them on my iPhone since they take longer to download and render and take up precious screen real estate. (Plus I pay for Yahoo mail so I don't see ads--but they serve ads to me on the mobile version anyway! No, I don't want to use the iPhone's mail app for my Yahoo mail.)

And if anyone reading is/plans to be an iPhone app dev, I'd also like an app that lets me determine which way is south based on the time of day--that would make a great addition to Google Maps. Just draw an analog clock face (adjusted for DST if needed) with 12 at the top and two lines: one says "point at sun" and the other says "south is that way."

Blocking unwanted parasites with a hosts file.

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm/

And for those of us who run multiple browsers, /etc/hosts FTW. There are a couple of ads near the bottom but nothing obnoxious at all. I'm always amazed at how much advertising there is on sites I visit daily when I happen to look at them on someone else's machine.

Now all I want is to be able to use that file on my iPhone. Nothing worse than downloading ads over EDGE. Ugh. Unfortunately, I don't think the SDK will allow quite that much access. Maybe we'll see another browser? Safari really isn't that much to write home about. I'd be happy with one that just stripped out all CSS.

OK, am I offtopic enough now? I htink I'm about 3 levels removed from whatever the hell this thread is actually about. :-) Oh, what, typosquatting? Yeah, sucks.

Or http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm Does wonders accross the board... except I would like to click a AdSense link ever now and again, and actually go to it.

I agree. I like the content on the site, and refer people to it somewhat regularly (the need to purge the world of stupid urban legends and the even stupider people who propagate them overrides my hatred for money-grubbing, popup-laden websites). However, I've long noticed that Snopes is one of the worst "mainstream" websites in terms of popup/unders, webpages heavily laced with ads, etc. I know that's how they stay afloat, but it's getting obnoxious. I'd think twice before I go there again, however, in light of the Zango thing.

On a related note; here are good instructions on how to use a pre-modified HOSTS file to block ads. Good for those who still use IE (as there sadly doesn't appear to be a good IE alternative to FF's excellent Adblock Plus + Filterset_G): http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm. There are lots of ways to do this (blocking at the router, 3rd-party software blocking progs, use FF, etc.), this is one of them. :)

I'm sure he'd be happy to after you give him a job in a developed country.

This was the top result in Google when I searched for "windows remote power down API".

As a subscriber you are probably not aware that /. has started inserting banner ads after some posts.

As someone with a custom /etc/hosts file I, too, was not aware that /.has started inserting banner ads after some posts. :-)

Or, even better, use an updated HOSTS file which has entries to block malicious sites: (on last check, this blocked over 16,000 addresses!): http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.zip

Yes, that HOSTS file totally rocks. But be sure to review the readme file. The massive size of the file makes it sometimes necessary to disable the "DNS Client" service on Windows 2000, XP, and newer.

Another approach is to just block it in your HOSTS file:

127.0.0.1 uc8010.com

Or, even better, use an updated HOSTS file which has entries to block malicious sites: (on last check, this blocked over 16,000 addresses!): http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.zip

Description and explanation is here.

Another approach is to just block it in your HOSTS file:

127.0.0.1 uc8010.com

Or, even better, use an updated HOSTS file which has entries to block malicious sites: (on last check, this blocked over 16,000 addresses!): http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.zip

Description and explanation is here.

Please do yourself a favour and download this HOSTS file:

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

And use it. That domain has long since been blocked. Jeez, people. Old news.

This site is targeted at windows users, but it is applicable to almost any OS. Download their hosts file and append it to your /etc/hosts file. (unless OS X puts that file in some other location)

I avoid them as much as possible.

A SHAMEFUL waste of time and resources!

If the product or service is so good, word-of-mouth is all that's needed.

Does WAL-MART *REALLY* need to spend $4,000,000.00 A DAY on advertising!?!
Imagine how much lower their prices would be if they didn't spend this amount
each day on advertising....

Thank goodness for the 'NoAd' hosts file at:

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

I even block Google AdSense: If the webmasters want to show ads they can host them themselves on their domain and make the ad truly 'unblockable' -- blocking the host in this case blocks the desired content.

This is probably where the Internet at large is heading in the near future.

As I said in an earlier AC post, there are only 3 groups making REAL money online:

1) The ISPs that get you online.

2) The 'meatspace' economy facilitators like Amazon and eBay.

3) The search engine/ad agencies like Google and Yahoo.

If you are not in the above groups and making legit money online, more power to you!

Protip: When you come across a site with annoying flashing ads, press the escape key. At least in Firefox, this will stop any/all animated GIFs on the page.

This was a pro tip five years ago. Today almost all advertising/annoying/blinking stuff is flash-based.

I also recommend NoScript for getting rid of Java/Javascript ads and script-based tracking tools. AdBlock is another nice tool that could be helpful.

While you are at it, download an updates HOSTS file, to truly block ads at their source.

Or, if dehabilitating bugs, memory leaks, awful zooming, and generally clunky UI aren't your thing, you can run Opera and have an up-to-date HOSTS file.

The rest can suck it, but I'm sticking with GameFAQs for the time being. Like it or not, I'd be hard-pressed to think of an alternative that's just as quick and easy.

In fact, I think I'll refresh it a few hundred times just to catch up on the latest exciting updates! Oooh, Cloud Strife versus Solid Snake, I wonder who will win!?

First, though, I think I'll customize my browsing experience a bit... wouldn't want them to profit off the clueless 16-year-olds generating their content, after all. ;)

Just block them on your machine. As the first line of defence I use http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.txt, which is a hostlist that, among others, points doubleclick and googleads to 127.0.0.1. At this momen more then 30.000 domains.

It speeds up those slow websites a LOT and already reduces the amount of adds. Also it will work for all your broswers.

I asume there will be many more lists like that, yet this one is the best that I know.