HOSTS file adblocking ∞
I just received an adblock update from Mike over at everythingisnt.com, that made me think that perhaps there are people who still don’t know about this easy, effective, and free technique to block adverts.
The method is simple, use the hosts file to trick your computer into thinking the advert servers linked in web-pages are actually stored on your local computer. Of course, they’re not, so the adverts fail to display, et voila, simple adblocking in practice.
The tricky bit is to maintain a list of websites that serve nothing but adverts. Luckily for us mere mortals, this has been done. Just head over to www.everythingisnt.com/hosts.html, and follow the instructions.
There is an installer for those on windows, or manual copy/paste for all operating systems. Note, if you have manually set up rules in your hosts file, for local networking etc. then don’t use the installer.