Bob said:
Have you yet tried disabling meta-refresh in the web browser? While
this is not a good permanent solution, it'll show you if that's the
trick they're playing to cause your problem.
Have you yet tried disabling scripting and then checking if their
behavior continues? Alas, I don't know of an add-on for IE that lets
you easily toggle on-off its scripting support or to have a blacklist of
sites where you want scripting disabled. What I did is write a batch
file that changes the registry entry that disables scripting support in
IE. When you go into the Internet security zone (probably the only one
where you'll need to sometimes disable scripting) and change scripting
support (to disable it), a registry entry is created for IE to recognize
that setup. So my batch file changes the registry, loads IE, and
removes the registry change (so scripting will be supported later).
While this registry setting is enabled, all instances of IE no matter
how they are started will have scripting disabled, so you need to exit
the batch script to undo the registry change. The batch file also runs
CCleaner after unloading IE just to ensure everything gets wiped. I
then use a shortcut to that .bat file when I want scripting disabled in
IE. It contains (between the dash lines):
File: noscriptIE.bat
----------------------------------------
@echo off
cls
REM - Path to Internet Explorer 32-bit executable file:
set iepath=C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe
rem - Disable script support in Internet security zone.
echo __________________________________________________________________
echo.
echo DISABLE script support in Internet Explorer ...
reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet
Settings\Zones\3" /v 1400 /t reg_dword /d 3 /f
rem - Run IE and include command-line parameters.
echo.
echo __________________________________________________________________
echo.
echo Load Internet Explorer with no script support ...
echo.
echo *** Do NOT terminate this batch file.
echo *** Exit the web browser to complete this batch file and
echo resume script support.
echo.
echo WARNING: ALL instances of the web browser will have scripting
disabled
echo until this batch file completes execution.
echo.
echo Command = "%iepath%" %*
"%iepath%" %*
echo.
echo __________________________________________________________________
echo.
rem - Enable script support in Internet security zone.
echo.
echo ENABLE script support in Internet Explorer ...
reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet
Settings\Zones\3" /v 1400 /t reg_dword /d 0 /f
rem - Cleanup history, cookies, TIF cache, etc.
echo.
echo Cleaning up ...
"C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe" /auto
----------------------------------------
Edit the iepath variable to point at wherever IE is installed on your
host. For IE pre-10, and for x64 versions of Windows, the (x86) is
needed if you want to ensure you load the 32-bit version of IE. For
IE10 (and probably IE11) which is a frankenjob by Microsoft, you always
end up loading the 64-bit version for the frame (the tabs run as 32-bit
processes).
Neither blocking meta-refresh or scripting is a good solution because
way too many sites require them for their site to behave correctly.
If the above cures their behavior then stop using the 'hosts' file.
That can only block on *hostnames*, not on domains. You'll want to
block on all of both .doubleclick.com and .doubleclick.net (and other
unwanted tracking and ad sources). To do that requires something more
than blocking on host names. You need to add something that blocks on
*domains* via URL blocking that lets you specify just the domains.
I use Avast Free and it has URL blocking so I can block on all of
Doubleclick's domains. Other solutions is to use Firefox with the
NoScript add-on (to decide where and when scripts will run) and either
the Adblock Plus (which will slow the load of Firefox not only to load
itself but also for each blocklist you add to it) or the Ghostery add-on
(99% as effective as using Adblock with Easy+EasyPrivacy blocklists but
doesn't slow load of Firefox). Some firewalls have a URL blocking
feature.
IE itself has a domain blocking feature. I think in IE8 it was called
InPrivate Filter (not the InPrivate Browing feature) where you could
import .xml files that listed URLs, including just domains, that you
want to block. The problem is that Microsoft conflicted with their own
syntax in different articles and too many authors of these lists used
the old DOS-based wildcard format instead of regex (regular
expressions). They used Microsoft's examples instead of Microsoft's
spec that stated to use regex (but not even Microsoft supported much of
regex for the XML blacklist). In IE9, and later, it got changed to the
Tracking Protection list. I used to have my own list of about 50
entries in my .xml import file but decided to just go with the Abine,
Easylist, EasyPrivacy, and Stop Google Tracking blacklists that this
feature will automatically update with newer versions of these
blacklists as they become available. These lists are a lot longer than
my personal list but they don't seem to impact loading or responsiveness
of IE. For IE8, and earlier, there is a site where you can get an
adapted .xml file for import of the EasyPrivacy blacklist so you don't
have to do it (but updates are not automatic so you'll have to
periodically redownload the list, delete all current entries, and then
import their adapted blacklist). Toggling on/off this filter is easy in
IE: in IE, as I recall, I just did it using the status bar section for
the InPrivate Filter, and for IE9 I just use the toggle button in the
address bar.
