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Chrome and Firefox Block Pirate Bay Over 'Harmful Programs' (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by msmash on from the malware-attack dept.

An anonymous reader shares a TorrentFreak report: Chrome and Firefox are actively blocking direct access to the The Pirate Bay's download pages. According to Google's Safe Browsing diagnostics service TPB contains "harmful programs," most likely triggered by malicious advertisements running on the site. Comodo DNS also showed a "hacking" warning but this disappeared after a few hours.

86 comments

  1. Better just block the whole internet by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Only way to be sure.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:Better just block the whole internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Better just block the whole internet

      That is how North Korea protects their citizens (from truth, very dangerous stuff).

    2. Re:Better just block the whole internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What NK and China first, west follows.

    3. Re:Better just block the whole internet by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      How do I feel about a Nazi bitch? Well, until a moment ago I didn't know her and now I consider her good enough to hopefully soon become fertilizer.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Better just block the whole internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hold on, hold on just a second. This installation has a substantial dollar value attached to it.

    5. Re:Better just block the whole internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you! Free speech should only apply to those who say things I agree with.

    6. Re: Better just block the whole internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You got it wrong. When China and NK do it they are abusing rights when the West does it they are protecting freedom. Now get back to work peasant.

  2. They are doing the user a service? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Think of it as an ad block on steroids.

  3. Everything is fine... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As the world burns...

    The only thing harmful here is a change of mind. Advertising on the internet is specifically user hostile, so active malware distribution is at best turning up the heat on a boiling pot.

    Oh, unless they meant backdoored programs in the torrents, as if that was new?

  4. Hah! by newcastlejon · · Score: 2

    Works fine for me, and that's not something I get to say very often when using Safari.

    --
    If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
    1. Re:Hah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Works fine for me too, using Firefox and Chrome. Not sure what the bs story is talking about.

    2. Re:Hah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apparently, you don't understand what "direct access" means and how insignificant it really is. That's about what I'd expect from a blowhard nit who considers it a privilege to bleat about the glory of his proprietary software prison.

    3. Re:Hah! by ewanm89 · · Score: 2

      the download pages have been added to google safe browsing blacklist.

    4. Re:Hah! by Alumoi · · Score: 2

      Oh, you mean that checkbox (Block dangerous and deceptive content) any sane persons unticks after installing?
      Of course there are people thinking Firefox has an adblocker baked in an let this option checked, but they soon find out it's not the case.

    5. Re:Hah! by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      Oh, you mean that checkbox (Block dangerous and deceptive content) any sane persons unticks after installing?

      I've never unchecked that option and the few times it's ever blocked a site, it was actually a malicious site.
      Why not keep it checked, unless you're going to compromised sites?

  5. 3rd time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So Pirate Bay gets blocked 20 minutes and TorrentFreak runs a story.... yeap... sounds about right

    1. Re:3rd time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's been on the safe browsing blacklist for days.

  6. But not Forbes? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Informative
    A site that demands you allow them to install malware, and has proven already to have done so.

    I already block them for that reason.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    1. Re:But not Forbes? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      My browser extensions make Forbes not work so if I go there accidentally I have no problem. I use noscript and ublock origin to handle this kind of stuff, and I have the "protections" in Firefox turned off because the Mozilla Foundation is not actually qualified to determine what I should see. I leave that up to someone who is good at it.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:But not Forbes? by No+Longer+an+AC · · Score: 1

      My browser extensions make Forbes not work so

      No, Forbes made it so your browser doesn't work.

      It's the fight they're offering. Oh, you users want to use adblock? Fine, we'll make our site unusable to you.

      My response?

      Fine, I'll go somewhere else. (Forbes doesn't have any exclusive news content anyway).

  7. TOR - The Onion Router by DrYak · · Score: 1

    Meanwhile, http://uj3wazyk5u4hnvtk.onion/ continues to work (as long as your have a Tor proxy running, obviously)

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
    1. Re:TOR - The Onion Router by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Running HTTP over Tor is not a good idea.

    2. Re:TOR - The Onion Router by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While you're right - that site doesn't have an HTTPS option, sadly. Besides, you give away a lot more actually using Bittorrent to download something from TPB...

  8. It just gives you a warning by ArtemaOne · · Score: 4, Informative

    It isn't a block, it is a warning. Works just fine.

    1. Re:It just gives you a warning by ravenshrike · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hey, expecting the average pebkac to click a button saying they acknowledge the high probability that the website in question will infest their computer is entirely too difficult. As for TPB, it has been worse than normal recently, enough that I immediately run MWB and S&D after visiting.

    2. Re:It just gives you a warning by ewanm89 · · Score: 1

      Which is why google probably flagged something in one of those worse than normal adverts.

    3. Re:It just gives you a warning by AHuxley · · Score: 2

      First they put in a warning, and I did not speak out—
      Because it was not a block.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    4. Re:It just gives you a warning by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      To be fair given the amount of malware on those torrents is it really a false warning?

    5. Re:It just gives you a warning by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      Well, not really, but if that was the justification, I question the lack of warnings on ads.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    6. Re:It just gives you a warning by nut · · Score: 1

      It isn't a block, it is a warning. Works just fine.

      Today it's a warning.

      --
      Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, Never drive a car when you're dead
    7. Re:It just gives you a warning by ArtemaOne · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and several days ago too.

  9. what we need here is a mentality reset by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is true there are advertisements that have malicious effects, if you load them and/or run their javascript (which is idiotic to go running). It is also true that malicious native OS executables can be found on sites like TPB. Even moreover, it's almost certainly true that I could work around whatever "block" they have put in place.

    However, let's hold the bus just a sec. Harmful things exist, but I do NOT want Google / Mozilla / the US Govt / China / the EU / my homeowner's association / insurance company / whoever making my choices for me about what I should see, run, what sites I can visit, and what information is harvested for who to sell to who.

    What we need here is a reset back to the 1980's. I had a computer on my desk - well, probably under, at the time. It did whatever the fuck I told it to. It answered to me. It could access the (then pre-web internet), and there was nobody trying to tell me what was "acceptable". Not that it was bug free, but it generally was written to accept my commands. The FT-fucking-P program was not written to check back with the homeship whether the site was "safe". More and more we see big companies and bigger governments all wanting to tell me what I should be doing, reading, saying, and running. For my own protection. For the children. For the RIAA.

    Control freaks: do please fuck off. Yes, I know, using Chrome and Firefox is optional. I know the internet is not safe, particularly if you are uneducated. But this big brother shit is becoming neigh well unavoidable unless you want to live in a fucking cave.

    1. Re:what we need here is a mentality reset by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Post of the motherfucking decade.

    2. Re: what we need here is a mentality reset by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +1 motherfucking fact

    3. Re:what we need here is a mentality reset by ewanm89 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Google's safe browsing list have been in both Firefox and chrome since chrome's first release, and both Firefox and chrome have a toggle to turn it off in the options should you wish. For some reason Google has added pirate bay download pages to the list, according to database lookup it matches the sort of block they usually impose when the site has been compromised either directly or via maleware embedded in advertising.

    4. Re:what we need here is a mentality reset by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shut up luser, it's for your own safety and security. Now please go fuck off and find something else to do for the next 45 minutes so Windows can update "your" computer. And pray to Nadella that your mouse still functions when it's through.

    5. Re:what we need here is a mentality reset by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      However, let's hold the bus just a sec. Harmful things exist, but I do NOT want Google / Mozilla / the US Govt / China / the EU / my homeowner's association / insurance company / whoever making my choices for me about what I should see, run, what sites I can visit, and what information is harvested for who to sell to who.

      I usually agree wholeheartedly.

      In this specific place it is not a block--it's just a warning.

      This is for your typical user who doesn't know anything technical. It's a decision like building a monolithic program we call "browser" instead of many tiny tools which do one thing great that could, theoretically, be chained-together with scripts to do some sort of browsing: a decision made for those people so they can just get on with things--relatively safely (sort of).

      So meh. Trade-offs. As long as they aren't taking the choice away entirely I don't have to learn to hack C and unfsck their tyranny. :)~

    6. Re:what we need here is a mentality reset by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      What the fuck is a Nadella? Sounds like some sort of parasite you pick up while swimming in the Ganges.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    7. Re:what we need here is a mentality reset by allo · · Score: 1

      you can. just disable all the crap in your firefox. See ffprofile.com

    8. Re:what we need here is a mentality reset by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 1

      Darth Nadella: I am altering your operating system. Pray I don't alter it any further... not that your prayers, tears, and blood sacrifice matter to me.

    9. Re:what we need here is a mentality reset by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Calm down, now. It's a warning that you can click right on through. It's a whole lot easier than maintaining your own list of sites with malware infested ads and/or drive-by downloads.

    10. Re:what we need here is a mentality reset by the_Bionic_lemming · · Score: 1

      It's not hard to write your own ftp client. Computers still do what you tell them to do if you rely on your own code instead of third party code.

      But yeah, this whole "telemetry" thing needs to legislated against. Specially now that bandwidth caps are gaining teeth.

      --
      _ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
  10. uncheck "Protect you and your device from dangerou by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Finally gave me a reason to abandon those safety filters.

    In Chromodo:
    Settings -> Advanced -> uncheck "Protect you and your device from dangerous sites"

  11. Not too far from the truth, honestly. by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not sure about torrent freaks, but TPB and KAT would spawn no end of pop ups and new tabs suggesting you click on their links for free "security scans" and "disk repair tools" of dubious provenance. And Adblock seemed powerless to stop it. No way would I ever take them up on their "generous offers", but I'd bet that many a less savvy or careful user got themselves pwned that way.

    --
    Imagine all the people...
    1. Re:Not too far from the truth, honestly. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      ...TPB and KAT would spawn no end of pop ups and new tabs ...And Adblock seemed powerless to stop it.

      This is why people use Adblock AND NoScript

    2. Re:Not too far from the truth, honestly. by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2

      disable jscript and its fine.

      or so I've heard.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    3. Re:Not too far from the truth, honestly. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      this situation is actually the smoking gun in my tinfoil hat assessment that TPB and KAT are 100% NSA.

    4. Re:Not too far from the truth, honestly. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Informative

      Never had that issue with KAT and uBlock. TPB doesn't give me pop-ups but the many "mirrors" do. Make sure you are on the genuine site: https://thepiratebay.org/

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:Not too far from the truth, honestly. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must have a really shitty adblock.
      Ublock origin with the default filters blocks all that shit.

  12. Malware in torrents by gatfirls · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I haven't been on TPB in a long time but I recall there being tons of malware/viruses in application/game downloads. I don't think there is some ulterior motive here.

    1. Re:Malware in torrents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Always hard to be sure with those, because cracks/keygens get false positives all the time.

    2. Re:Malware in torrents by gatfirls · · Score: 1

      Ohh I was sure, I ran everything in a sandbox VM and plenty of them were really nasty trojans etc.

    3. Re:Malware in torrents by Mister+Transistor · · Score: 2

      You realize those are usually put there by the game's manufacturer's, right? They are trying to put the "fear of God" into people (like you) downloading the cracks, etc. as their twisted form of anti-piracy.

      Game crackers/release groups thrive on getting it out first, and doing it right, so why would they promulgate viruses? It would surely ruin the groups' reputation if it got out there.

      Plus, all the anti-malware programs flag such stuff as harmless keygens all as "PUP" or worse, "trojans" or other unspecified malware. This doesn't help the confusion either, as you really don't know if it's benign or an actual piece of malware. Running in a VM is the only solution, and restore prior state after running the "crack", because you really don't know whether it did anything malicious or not.

      --
      -- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
    4. Re:Malware in torrents by gatfirls · · Score: 1

      I have heard the theory that game/app devs do this but I find it hard to believe (in a couple instances maybe but not in any meaningful volume). Regardless of their intentions it would be a huge smear on their company to be authoring malware to thwart piracy.

      As to groups doing this, I don't think that either, it's just people taking the app/game/etc and bundling it with their malware.

      Like I said, I haven't been to these sites in ages but I doubt a whole lot has changed. People who do illegal stuff are very unlikely to complain when illegal stuff victimizes them.

    5. Re:Malware in torrents by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I can assure you, as a professional game programmer, that I've never even heard of such a practice. That's not to say it hasn't ever been done or tried, but I certainly haven't heard of such an instance, at least from inside the industry. I'm pretty sure that videogame companies don't want people to associate their games with malware either, even if they're not getting a sale. I also don't believe that it's the groups who crack programs' DRM that do this. Like you said, they've also got a reputation that would be damaged.

      As an author myself, I'll be releasing my game DRM-free (well, the PC versions at least, but other platforms are out of my control) and cryptographically signed. Even when it's pirated (which is pretty much inevitable), people will know it's not been tampered with and is safe to play. I'd prefer them to have fun with the game, and maybe in the future they'll become a paying customer.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    6. Re:Malware in torrents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course it's not done by the gaming company itself, it's outsourced to some fronting company that can take the blame and beating if it's revealed.

    7. Re:Malware in torrents by Mister+Transistor · · Score: 0

      By "manufacturers" I meant either their marketing/sales forces or the agents they might employ like RightsCorp or whoever. Of course, all plausible deniability forces would be in play, so fingering the actual game publisher/mfr. would be difficult to impossible.

      Poisoned or fake Downloads, Torrents, etc. is an old RIAA/MPAA favorite, either to waste the time of the downloader or to try and "teach them a lesson".

      --
      -- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
    8. Re:Malware in torrents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ah, the foolishness of youth. When I was young and a programmer, my manager complained to me someone was stealing some programs of ours. I made a logic bomb where it cleaned the partition table and nothing else. Sure enough, later on the week a regular customer popped by with his disk "erased"...

    9. Re:Malware in torrents by DrXym · · Score: 2

      Most of the malware is in movie downloads. If a movie is in .wmv format, it's malware (Windows Media Player will prompt you to download the "drm" the file is supposedly protected by which will infect you). If it's an .exe, it's malware. If the movie is inside an encrypted .rar or .zip, then it's fake and the accompanying readme.txt will pretend you can get the key if you visit a site serving malware or some other scam.

    10. Re:Malware in torrents by DrXym · · Score: 1
      I expect legit companies do seed networks with broken content that doesn't work, or contains deliberate glitches and engage in other disruptive behaviour. Stuff tat sows confusion, discredits pirate sites and allows them to claw back some sales. They might even post out phony keygens / cracks which don't work.

      But I don't see them posting out trojans because of the potential repercussions if the file was traced back to them. I think you can blame the trojans on others. The first rule of a scam is to make the mark want to do something against their better judgement. The best way to do that is incentivize them into thinking they're getting a game for free or before anyone else. So wrapping up a trojan as a keygen or as a new movie is a perfect way to do that.

    11. Re: Malware in torrents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do know what you did was against the law right? Why don't you tell us who you are so we know never to do business with you again. Because you are a money grubbing scum lord who doesn't give a fuck about anyone.

    12. Re:Malware in torrents by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      Fake Downloads is a time tested tactic, but putting viruses, malware, etc into fake downloads opens them up to legal liability. So I'd say.. "unlikely."

  13. I Click The Links by zenlessyank · · Score: 0

    But I have yet to get any of the physical media to download. I tried real hard. I even meditated to make it work better. I guess I need a 3D printer.

  14. Still works on latest Chrome... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With or without "protect me from evil" checked. But last week there was an ad? that said don't use piratebay without a VPN because the FBI is tracking you. Of course I ignored that.

  15. The Pirate Bay IS full of malware. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The fucking site has the worst, most insulting kind of horrible shit-ads, and constantly tries to open a bunch of malware shit while browsing. The only reason people defend that shitty site is because they want free stuff and forgive them for anything. I hate all these stupid people who think that the people behind TPB are somehow "on their side" and "sticking it to the man", when in reality, they treat them as absolute morons (and correctly so, given the praise).

    Sickening. We've really devolved from the early 2000s and late 1990s when you could just type any song title or file name into various P2P software and instantly download the file. Today, you have to figure out which album and artist the song you want is from, usually by searching Wikipedia, and then enter the right terms into TPB, get subjected to all kinds of horrible ads and malware shit, and then finally (possibly) find a torrent to download and extract the song from.

    And don't tell me to "block ads". I already do, and it still manages to constantly open some shit in the background. It's besides the point, anyway; it should not require ANY kind of client-side modification.

    1. Re:The Pirate Bay IS full of malware. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must be using AdBlock or AdBlock+ because I don't see any ads or popups. That or you're using Windows.

    2. Re:The Pirate Bay IS full of malware. by yuriklastalov · · Score: 2

      Nah, he's just a fucking retard. P2P filesharing in the early 2000's was a clusterfuck of bogus files masquerading as legit ones, music with jacked up metadata, and slow, unreliable downloads... "Yeah, lets bring back KaZaA," said no one ever.

  16. Whoops! by pigsycyberbully · · Score: 0

    Opera 12.16 Build 1860 platform Linux, Windows, Mac OS X. Click disable search suggestions. Delete google. Set outgoing to https://duckduckgo.com/ and customise settings by typing into the address bar opera:config#UserPrefs|CustomUser-Agent and so on.

    Disable auto update and disable fraud and malware protection in the browser. Heavy snooping from websites like Slashdot, will use Java to guess your operating system.

    To access http://uj3wazyk5u4hnvtk.onion/ via web you will have to use the Tor Browser, and type in that address in the address bar. And build up your list from their lists and track the other lists until you have a massive pirate list.

    You will discover that once you can have the software you think you wanted you realise it's just not very good and not really worth having. And once you have watched 100 Hollywood films you find out that they are all the same basically and you are just wasting your life and killing brain cells. And you will end up with brain death, and answering chat bots. the situation in which a person's brain stops working and they join the Slashdot bots.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    1. Re:Whoops! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Opera sucks. Opera has always sucked. Opera will likely always suck.

      I never understood the appeal in the first place.

      Do you just want to be different, even when it means suffering through a browser that is only slightly better than M$ Internet Exploder?

  17. It does serve harmful pop-up ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They're not wrong. Whatever advertising network they use, it does often serve harmful pop-up ads that cover the screen, pop-up fake warnings of virus alerts and fake "you are doing something illegal so send us Bitcoins" ransoms, and serve fake downloads that could turn out to be ransomware.

    That site has been doing this for literally years and users just accept it as legitimate.

  18. Edge? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That will be surprise of the century if we will have to switch to Edge.

  19. Unless you and a 100k-1m people... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Are willing to significantly crowdfund alternative hardware from the chip fab up to the enclosure and certification, that isn't going to happen in today's computer environment.

    Every cpu/soc manufacturer is pushing hardware with both manufacturer and vendor firmware signing options. All of them have greater than user level virtualization/security features, most of which are under NDA to gain the knowledge necessary to safely program for consumer control of their hardware. Many pieces of hardware now have methods of bricking, warrnty, and drm invalidation if you modify the software, etc.

    In order for the common globalized citizen to have the level of control you are talking about once again, a whole new ecosystem is necessary, from the hardware to the unrestricted documentation (think c64 hardware manuals, combined with dos/unix/minix os internals documentation), to the software toolchain and peripherals firmware.

    All of that is doable, but every year that has passed has seen less protest, and far less done to staunch the flow of rights or provide open solutions. All the 'open' solutions being pushed today are primarily marketing gimmicks utilizing the exact hardware I complained about above. ESPECIALLY intel processors (2/4 computer/laptop replacements I have seen on crowdfunding sites were in fact modern Intel hardware with signed and non-user replacable firmware blobs pieces of hardware with critical security implications. The others were ARM based, and potentially had their own issues depending on trustzone support and the bootloader/firmware included.)

    Unless we see an open hardware equivalent of the bitcoin ASICminer rush happen (note those devices are not a good example for 'open hardware', but ARE a good example of the level of crowdfunding needed!) there is very little chance of liberty returning to the computing field within any of our lifetimes, if ever again.

    1. Re:Unless you and a 100k-1m people... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He didn't say it was at all feasible... just what we need.

  20. I'm not surprised by DrXym · · Score: 1
    Some of the ads on TPB are particularly scuzzy. I remember visiting once and an APK automatically began downloading on my phone. Other times when I've gone there sites have to tried to initiate downloads of .exes, popped up with fake virus / malware banners, or promoted software which has 99% probability of being scammy / trojans.

    I realize TPB takes its money where it can get it but it's hardly surprising it's ended up on a blacklist. In a sense it's amazing it's taken so long to happen. Perhaps it should restrict ads to static text, images and a url to prevent drive by infections and some of the sleazier things on there right now.

  21. Stop that shit now! by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    Where the fuck are we supposed to get 0day samples of new trojans?

    ---signed, Antivirus industry

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  22. AdBlock = inferior + 'souled-out' vs. hosts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Adblock can't do (or do as well) 16 things hosts do 4 speed, security & reliability:

    1.) Protect vs. bad sites (past ads)
    2.) Protect vs. fastflux botnet C&C servers
    3.) Protect vs. dynamic dns botnet C&C servers
    4.) Protect vs. DGA botnet C&C servers
    5.) Protect vs. downed DNS (reliability)
    6.) Protect vs. DNS redirect poisoned/downed dns
    7.) Protect vs. trackers
    8.) Protect vs. spam payloads
    9.) Protect vs. phish payloads
    10.) Protect vs. caps
    11.) Get past dns blocks
    12.) Keep off dns request logs
    13.) Speed up 2 ways (adblocks & hardcodes)
    14.) Work on anything webbound multiplatform.
    15.) Ez data edit
    16.) Block ads more efficiently in cpu/ram/I-O use

    APK

    P.S.=> Ab+ does less vs. hosts less efficiently (a 128-151mb memory hog http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-conte...)

    ClarityRay defeats it

    Ab+'s bribed not to work by default http://www.businessinsider.com...

    AdBlock's SLOWER: http://superuser.com/questions...

  23. UBlock = inferior + inefficient vs. hosts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    UBlock can't do these as well as (or @ all) hosts do 4 speed, security, & reliability:

    1.) Protect vs. bad sites (past ads)
    2.) Protect vs. fastflux botnet C&C's
    3.) Protect vs. dyndns botnet C&C's
    4.) Protect vs. DGA botnet C&C's
    5.) Protect vs. downed DNS (reliability)
    6.) Protect vs. DNS poisoned dns
    7.) Protect vs. trackers
    8.) Protect vs. spam payloads
    9.) Protect vs. phish payloads
    10.) Protect vs. caps
    11.) Get past dns blocks
    12.) Keep off dns request logs
    13.) Speed up 2 ways (adblocks/hardcodes)
    14.) Work on anything webbound multiplatform.
    15.) Ez data edit
    16.) Block ads more efficiently in cpu/ram/I-O use
    17.) UBlock now uses hosts (no DNS benefits vs. dns issues) - poor imitation = "sincerest form of flattery"

    Hosts = native vs. illogically "Bolting on 'MoAr'" & not ClarityRay blockable like addons.

    APK

    P.S.=> Hosts (1st resolver) do MORE w/ less in fast kernelmode & before slow usermode addons

    Hosts ~3mb vs. UBlock = 64MB -> http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-conte...

  24. Hosts = do more 4 less vs. browser addons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?...

    Ads rob speed, security (malvertising) & privacy (tracking).

    Hosts add speed (hardcodes/adblocks), security (bad sites/poisoned dns), reliability (dns down), & anonymity (dns requestlogs/trackers) natively.

    Works vs. caps & PUSH ads.

    Avg. page = big as Doom http://www.theregister.co.uk/2... & ads = 40% of it.

    Hosts != ClarityRay blockable (vs. souled-out to admen inferior wasteful redundant slow usermode addons)

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus (slows you) + less security issues/complexity.

    Compliments firewalls (blocking less used IP addys vs. hosts blocking more used domains) & DNS (lightens dns load).

    Gets data via 10 security sites.

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/... (Verified by Malwarebytes' S. Burn "seen the code & it's safe" http://forum.hosts-file.net/vi... )

  25. They don't by allo · · Score: 1

    Googles safebrowsing does. Firefox does it not at all if you disabled the google phone-home-to-make-my-browsing-safer stuff.

  26. Ad Networks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ad networks have been repeatedly shown to introduce malware to your PC via Flash. I eagerly await Google's banishment of all ad networks.

  27. Cyber Security by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fact:
    There is a TOP secret Program that has a Virtual Internet. This means that they have all IP Addresses including all TOR & all traffic going in and out of countries.
    Example: All Internet going into & out of Thailand and other countries is scanned after removing encryption by the Government with there "low budget".

    Every thing that you put on the Net is archived even if you deleted it. It will still be there and archived including GPS locations, IP Address, etc .

    Fact:
    I used to do IT support for Windows. There's always Back Doors open on Windows & programs seems to run on their own.
    To increase security on PCs & Servers you have to migrate to Linux. Common sense.

  28. Crying wolf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What they are doing is crying wolf. Next time I see the big red page warning me of a harmful page I'm going to most likely ignore it since I now realize Google is actively trying to censor websites. They are not however actively blocking the site, they are passively blocking. Need to correct the OP.