# Adblock with Easylist and /etc/hosts

## regomodo

I am currently using http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.txt in my /etc/hosts file to adblock.

Is it possible to incorporate the Easylist?

----------

## SZwarts

Your easy list is not limited to hosts, so to be short no.

There are a lots and lots of entries like:

youtube.com##div[id$="-promo"]

if you extract the host out of that, with /etc/hosts you block complete youtube.

It's impossible to block on a host level when your blocking depends on the html contents.

similar for

yahoo.com##div[id="ad"]

msn.com#div(id^=ad-front)

itnewsonline.com#table(width=300)(height=250)

google.com,google.ca,google.co.uk,google.com.au#div(ads)

to just give a couple of examples.

Why don't you use an adblocker? And put the intelligences on the place where you expect it, within the html content?

----------

## regomodo

Cheers for clearing that up.

Reason why i'm blocking  through /etc/hosts as i'd try to offload all adblocking on my squid proxy server for my home network. I must admit, turning off adblock+ provides a noticeable increase in responsiveness.

----------

## SZwarts

Personally, I like ad blockers better, with host files, the problem is that you get all these broken images still on your webpage. Now exactly because an ad blocker does much more processing (it looks inside the html and it changes the html) it is a little slower. On most modern machine I would say not noticable.

BTW, you know of Squid Anti-Ad?

And another attempt also shows how to replace the broken images with an alternative image if you're using squid anyway.

----------

## vaguy02

The way I handle ads, is a DNS blackhole. Most ads aren't hosted on the same server as the content. They usually perform lookups for their content. I just monitor the traffic, find the domain names for the spam lookups. Then put in a poison zone in my Bind setup, so that domain returns 127.0.0.1 (ie. page cannot be display'ed).

Just wanted to add 2cents.

Vaguy02

----------

## freaky

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> The way I handle ads, is a DNS blackhole. Most ads aren't hosted on the same server as the content. They usually perform lookups for their content. I just monitor the traffic, find the domain names for the spam lookups. Then put in a poison zone in my Bind setup, so that domain returns 127.0.0.1 (ie. page cannot be display'ed). 

 

Because of people blocking them like these more and more are hosted on the same server. Some even go as far as trying to kill things like adblock+ by placing them in /images etc. with the other images. Block the adds there will block a lot of 'valid' images as well.

Whilst I use it myself too, I must admit it's not nice to the site owner. For a lot of sites the only income they have is from the adds. If enough people block them succesfully, you will have to eventually say farewell to the site as it will just go bankrupt or isn't worth the effort anymore.

Personally, I don't hate image adds that much, I do hate flash adds with a passion though, mainly because flash on linux has a lot of cpu usage (and moving things distract  :Smile: ). My girlfriend has a site she frequently uses on my laptop and I can hear it when she's on there because it will always get the CPU to 100% (core 2 duo 1,87GHz so that's pretty steep...) and the fan will make noise  :Very Happy: .

----------

## SZwarts

 *freaky wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Because of people blocking them like these more and more are hosted on the same server. Some even go as far as trying to kill things like adblock+ by placing them in /images etc. with the other images. Block the adds there will block a lot of 'valid' images as well.
> 
> 

 

I doubt this is a growing trend, I hardly see it. Reasons are that usually the content provider does not want to change ads and stuff, but another company is providing the ads. Making them come from the content-providers webspace, makes it very hard for the ad-seller to change them.

So I doubt this is a common technique.

Anyway, a better content-html ad blocker can still find these ads in most cases. So maybe host blocking isn't the best strategy and a plugin doesn't take that much more cpu cycles.

 *freaky wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Whilst I use it myself too, I must admit it's not nice to the site owner. For a lot of sites the only income they have is from the adds. If enough people block them succesfully, you will have to eventually say farewell to the site as it will just go bankrupt or isn't worth the effort anymore.
> 
> 

 

I don't feel responsible for the income model of other people. I'm also the guy who shamelessly walks away during a commercial break on television of my favourite movie, instead of sitting there and supporting them with my eyes. (you will have to pay for cable if you keep doing this! doubt it, the strategy has worked for decades...)

If people use a flawed market model it will colapse. And I would be a happier person without ads on the internet, where content is made for people who care (money), which I believe will be higher quality.

Besides, there is the fact of the prisoners-dillema, if I don't but other people do, if I do but other people dont ... So in the end I'm rather the smart guy who blocks them than other people. On top of that, I feel that I should be reasonably in control of what happens on my computer, if I can block stuff on my computer that is my choice.

----------

