HOSTS problem....

[RJK]

After HOURS and HOURS of fiddling and tweaking, it seems that because my ISP
server? dishes up both ad and non-ad content, this is why my host file NEVER
works.

So I thought the EXPERTS in here might like to take a look at, and comment
on
http://www.schooner.com/~loverso/no-ads/#howtouse

regards, Richard

.....I used to use a *.pac file years ago, looks like I'll be having another
got at this

 

[David Candy]

Wouldn't it be better to post your hosts file.

 

[RJK]

Thanx David ...but,

YES !!!! YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES
!!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES
!!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!YES !!!!

it's working !!!! ...after all this time !
well.... hosts isn't working but, the procedure on
http://www.schooner.com/~loverso/no-ads/#howtouse is

I just carefully worked throught the few odds and ends in
http://www.schooner.com/~loverso/no-ads/#howtouse and cleared cookies and
tif and double clicked my big blue E and my ISP's http://www.wanadoo.co.uk/
home page just loaded and at the top where the banner ad. always is, is now
showing "Action Cancelled"

I only saw an "action cancelled" once or twice in the distant past and then
the banner ads. were back !

This time around I again added edited the no-ads.pac file variable 'normal'
to:-
var normal = "http://www-cache.freeserve.com:8080"; as I'd done in the past
when attempting this procedure...

and added the
file://C:/WINDOWS/system32/drivers/etc/no-ads.pac pathname to my DUN's
automatic configuration script slot, as I'd done before.
(don't ask me why I'm storing it in etc ...it seemed as good a place as any
!

This morning - this time around having a 'go' with no-ads.pac, in IE6 -
Security - Local Intranet zone, I cleared the check box "Include all sites
that bypass the proxy server," ( I hadn't spotted that when I tried this -
weeks and weeks ago )...... and it WORKS. ...touch wood.

regards, Richard

Now, I should be able to stuff no-ads.pac full of lots more ad. server
url's or domain name, must go in and have a look at the syntax/nomenclature
for it, I don't want to upset it now, do I !!
















Wouldn't it be better to post your hosts file.

 

[RJK]

......oh, and I did the http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=271361 thing as
well !

regards, Richard


Wouldn't it be better to post your hosts file.

 

[RJK]

....this is good ! I just checked my Hotmail and there's two whopping great
big "Action Cancelled" 's on there. Meaning that no-ads.pac is working.

Earlier on I knocked up a couple of macros and whistled through the mvps'
hosts file converting it into a gigantic block of entries to insert into
no-ads.pac and it ceased working. I double checked the syntax e.g.
|| dnsDomainIs(host, ".mousebucks.com")
|| dnsDomainIs(host, ".websponsors.com")
|| dnsDomainIs(host, ".commission-junction.com")
|| dnsDomainIs(host, ".advertising.com")
|| dnsDomainIs(host, ".cybereps.com")
|| dnsDomainIs(host, ".postmasterdirect.com")
|| dnsDomainIs(host, ".mediaplex.com")
|| dnsDomainIs(host, ".adtegrity.com")
|| dnsDomainIs(host, ".bannerbank.ru")
|| dnsDomainIs(host, ".bannerspace.com")

(I noticed there's a tab in front of the two vertical bars...using Wordpad
to edit no-ads.pac ,andXP seems happy with formatting of this type ANSI?
..Open the thing in notepad and it's all jumbled up.

Anyway, I was wondering why no-ads.pac wouldn't work with that huge block of
entries extrapolated from the hosts file? I got rid of most of the www's
and www3's and https' and so on but, a lot of the entries in hosts have more
than two dots in them so I was wondering if that's what made it fall over,
or whether there's perhaps a limit to the size of no-ads.pac

It would be an enormous job editing them all to make sure that domain names
only have two parts and two dots, if u c wot I mean. There's only so much
you can do with a macro

regards, Richard

 

[RJK]

....though casting my eye through the JS in it (no-ads.pac) it seems to be
detecting sub-domains with, sort of wildcards.

regards, Richard