Can anyone decode this for me ? In other words, is it worth pursuing ?
http://www.schooner.com/~loverso/no-ads/#howtouse
Contents
Bust Banner Ads with Proxy Auto Configuration
Over one million (more or less) banner ads blocked since 1996!
no-ads.zip, 11k bytes (or no-ads.tgz, 11k bytes)
Version 5.28 released on Tuesday, 2004-Mar-23 14:36:32 CST
Recent changes:
5.28 2004/03/23 unicast.net
5.27 2004/03/23 remove duplicated rule (reported by "stub")
5.26 2004/03/04 cpu consuming swf ads at hardocp
5.25 2004/02/20 adserver in path
(better solution needed)
5.24 2004/02/19 dell popups
5.23 2004/02/18 fw gliding ads
5.22 2004/01/19 another ad server
5.21 2004/01/19 fix case problems reported by David Tinney
5.20 2004/01/14 remove uses of isInNet() for now
see
http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/thread?forumid=223428&messageid=1073481068
5.19 2004/01/05 undo /js/ for anandtech
5.18 2003/12/19 avsforum
5.17 2003/11/04 add paypopup.com
5.16 2003/09/19 add clicks and cashe (from "void")
5.15 2003/09/10 whitelist SprintPCS
5.14 2003/08/04 another ifilm redirect
5.13 2003/07/31 do less work when no-ads is not active
5.12 2003/07/27 add ifilm
5.11 2003/07/01 update comments for Mozilla 1.4 and PAC failover
5.10 2003/06/27 Remember to lowercase all patterns in shExpMatch
Add IMDB "celeb photos"
5.9 2003/06/17 add marketwatch.com
clarify .rampidads.com
5.8 2003/06/17 ru4.com
5.7 2003/06/13 two from Lucio Amorim
5.6 2003/06/11 block new ads at palmgear
reformat && sections
fix missing () around yimg.com rule
5.5 2003/06/10 new ads at image.ugo.com
5.4 2003/06/02 match hostnames starting with "pop"
in re_adxxx
5.3 2003/05/20 add rn11.com
5.2 2003/05/06 new no-auto-proxy-cache path
5.1 2003/05/05 regexp support (this is same as 4.27)
This is the coolest thing I've seen in a long time.
- unsolicited comment from a new user.
Table Of Contents
What Is This?
How Do I Use This?
Where Can I Get Help With This?
How Does This Work?
What Browsers Does This Work With?
How Do I Add URLs To Block?
Does This Work If I Already Use A Proxy?
Why Is This Better Than An Ad-removing Proxy?
Why Is This Better Than A Hosts File?
How Do I Know If It's Working?
Black Hole Proxy Servers
How Do I Deactive no-ads For Just One Site?
Does This Stop Popups / Popunders?
What Is This?
This is a simple change to the configuration of your web browser, setting it
such that it avoids making connections to banner advertisement servers and
avoids downloading ad images. If your browser can't connect to the
advertisement server, it can't show you the ad image. The trick behind this
is that it uses a mechanism already built into most recent browsers (IE,
Netscape, Mozilla, and Opera) and available on most platforms (Windows, Mac,
UNIX).
How Do I Use This?
Simply download and save no-ads.zip. Extract the no-ads.pac file from the
ZIP archive. It is a plain text file. Open it with an editor or text viewer,
and read the instructions it contains.
(hint: to open the file on Windows, right-click it and select Open With, and
choose wordpad - do not use notepad)
Where Can I Get Help With This?
I've created a web forum where people can discuss no-ads.pac and proxy auto
configuration.
How Does This Work?
Starting with Netscape 2.0 (when JavaScript was introduced), Navigator
gained the ability to evaluate a JavaScript function for every URL it was
about to load. The purpose of this mechanism is to automatically and
dynamically determine an appropriate HTTP proxy, where such a proxy might be
dependent upon the URL involved. Netscape has the documentation on the Proxy
Auto Config JavaScript functions available.
My use of Proxy Auto Configuration is to avoid using a proxy. URLs of known
anoying images are sent off to a black-hole proxy server which swallows the
request (and prevents the image from being loaded). URLs of actual content
are unaffected, and directly handled by the broswer.
(For what it's worth, I came up with this concept back in 1996 when I was
looking at interesting problems that JavaScript makes possible)
What Browsers Does This Work With?
Please post updates and corrections to the web forum.
a.. Mozilla, Firefox
It works perfectly with all versions of Mozilla from 1.0 and up, and with
Firefox/Firebird/Phoenix (I've tested 0.6).
Mozilla 1.4 (and Netscape 7.1) (and later) implements Proxy auto-config
failover. This allows Mozilla to utilize no-ads.pac without a black hole
proxy.
b.. Netscape Navigator
It works with recent Mozilla-based Netscape browsers (6.x and 7.x) (I've
not tested it, but I have many reports of success).
It works with all versions of Netscape Navigator from 2.0 (when I started
using this trick) up to and including 4.0x and 4.7x (but you should not be
using those old browsers anymore).
Recent versions of no-ads.pac use JavaScript regular expression objects.
This will not work on versions of Navigator prior to 4.0 (and may not work
on pre-6.x versions of Netscape). For those old browsers, use the last
version of no-ads without RegExps.
c.. Internet Explorer
Around IE3, Microsoft added Proxy Auto Config to Internet Explorer (their
documentation on this used to be at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/periodic/period99/faq0599.htm, but
Microsoft has removed it). I have tested with IE versions 4, 5, 5.5, and 6.
I still use IE5.5 SP2, as that has proved to be most stable and reliable
version (it still crashes on me, but not as much as other versions; this is
why I now use Mozilla).
With IE5 and later, you can load the PAC file from a file: URL This form
works: file://c:/no-ads.pac. I have tested this with IE5.01sp2 (on Win98),
IE5.5sp2 (Win98 & Win2K) and IE6 (on Win2K). With IE4 and earlier, you need
to load the PAC file from an http: URL.
IMPORTANT!
For all versions of IE, you must correct the security settings. Under
Tools->Internet Options, select the Security tab. Select Local intranet and
then click the Sites box. Then, remove the check mark next to the include
all sites that bypass the proxy server option.
IMPORTANT!
For IE5.5 and later, you must disable the Auto Proxy Caching
mechanism, as it defeats the ability to to block ad images on servers that
also serve non-ad content. To prevent this, add the registry key described
in MS KB article Q271361. To make it easy, you can just download and click
on this registry file: IE-auto-proxy-cache.reg.
Details: This sets the EnableAutoProxyResultCache registry key for the
current user. It also (thanks to InvisiBill) adds a new group and checkbox
to the IE's Internet Options Advanced tab, that allow you to easily change
the setting in the future.
For NT, Win2K, WinXP, you must run it once for each user on your
system using no-ads, as this is a per-user setting (the same key doesn't
work under HKLM).
For IE4, you will possible need to use the last version of no-ads without
RegExps.
For IE3, you will need to use the last plain version of no-ads. (I've had
one report of no-ads.pac working with IE 3.03. I've not tried it. I no
longer have an IE3 to test against.)
d.. Opera (6.0 and later)
I have tested with with Opera 6.04 (on Windows 2000). It works.
(Note: if you block Opera's own ads, it will stop working after 2 weeks)
Alternately, you can consider using Opera's URL filtering hook. (Although,
I don't know if that blocks Opera's own ads)
e.. Other browsers
If they have JavaScript and Proxy Auto Configuration support, then this
should work. If you try a browser not list here, please post an update on
the web forum.
How Do I Add URLs To Block?
Adding URLs to block is easy. It will be obvious once you look at
no-ads.pac. The industrious can even find Junkbuster blockfiles via a search
engine and directly add those URLs to the blocked list (if you do, announce
your work in the web forum).
Does This Work If I Already Use A Proxy?
Yes! (See the directions inside the no-ads.pac file)
Why Is This Better Than An Ad-removing Proxy?
If you use a ad-removing proxy (such as Junkbuster or Proxomitron or
BannerFilter+Squid), then (by definition), all of your content must go
through the proxy filter. This might slow down the loading of pages, or
cause other problems as the proxy is always running. The Proxy Auto Config
mechanism avoids this by avoiding a proxy altogether for the content you
actually care about.
Of course, if you want to control or block cookies, or dynamically alter
content, then you should try Proxomitron (or Junkbuster) and skip no-ads.
Why Is This Better Than A Hosts File?
Some people use an /etc/hosts (or on Windows, hosts.txt) file to map
hostnames of ad image servers to a non-responding address. The downside to
this is that it cannot be used for a server that serves both ad and non-ad
content. no-ads can block such hosts easily, but it can also just as easily
block some content on those hosts, not all of it, since no-ads can block
based upon the URL, not just the hostname.
How Do I Know If It's Working?
Try this test page. If the page is blank, then no-ads is working. If you see
the message, then no-ads isn't working.
You can also try these test URLs:
www.yahoo.com/banners/image &
www.yahoo.com/ads/image
If your browser displays Yahoo's Sorry the page was not found, then no-ads
isn't working.
If you are having problems getting no-ads to work, then post a message in
the web forum.
Black Hole Proxy Servers
The simplest black-hole proxy is one that doesn't even exist. If you use an
address on your local host, then the request will fail immediately. This is
how no-ads.pac is configured by default, so if you don't mind seeing a
missing image icon for each image that has been blocked, you have nothing to
change or configure. This works with Mozilla 1.4, Netscape 7.1, and all
versions of IE.
For other browsers, you will need an actual black-hole proxy that somehow
denies every request given to it. It can either return a HTTP 501 error
code, or server up a replacement image for the blocked ad image. Here are
some options:
a.. My simple noproxy shell script that acts as a blackhole proxy. It is
invoked (on UNIX) via inetd (or equivalent). It can be configured to return
an image, a redirect to an image, or an HTTP error code ("501 No Ads
Accepted"). Sample images include a clear (blank) image, or a no-ads logo.
noproxy, noproxy.clear.gif, noproxy.noads.gif
Stephen Ostermiller made this image for noproxy that makes it obvious
something was blocked, and scales well: noproxy.blocked.gif
b.. Sean Burke has a black-hole script written in Perl (UNIX; can be made
to work on Windows)
c.. Larry Wang has a black-hole program for Windows (and he also offers
the source code)
How Do I Deactive no-ads For Just One Site?
There isn't a provision to deactive no-ads for just one site. However, you
can deactivate no-ads for your current browser process. (This was
contributed by Sean Burke)
Mozilla always uses one process for all windows/tabs. IE uses one process
per invocation: if you use open in a new window, the new window is
controlled by the same process; but if you click on IE on the desktop, you
get a new process. Use these special links to deactivate or re-activate
no-ads for the current browser process.
no-ads off
no-ads on
Hint: drag these links to your browser's Link or Personal toolbar.
Old Versions of no-ads.pac
Sorry, I will not be updating these versions:
a.. no-ads-4.zip
The last revision (4.28) of no-ads.pac that did not use JavaScript
regular expressions.
Required for Netscape 2.x, 3.x, and possibly 4.x. Possibly needed
for IE4.x.
a.. no-ads-3.zip
The revision (3.27) of no-ads.pac avoiding JavaScript alert and var
statements.
Required for IE3.
Does This Stop Popups / Popunders?
No-ads is not a popup stopper. But, it does stop some popups (as it prevents
the loading of JavaScript source that makes the popup happen). And on other
popups, it doesn't stop the popup window from appearing, but it stops your
browser from loading the content.
Personally, I use Mozilla and I enable the Block Unrequested Popup Windows
option. I never see any popup advertisements.
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Last modified on Tuesday, 2004-Mar-23 07:34:12 CST.
(or about 04/12/2004 23:06:57, according to JavaScript)
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