I have to use dialup at home so anytime I can trim out unwanted content to make the pages load faster I'm going to do it! Advertising is overtaking MOST sites and is becoming more and more intrusive. There's a lot of ad blocking software available, but I'd like to show you guys how to do it the FREE way.

This project will continually be updated.
May 3, 2004 --> Initial Post

Windows XP = C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC
Windows 2K = C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC
Win 98\ME = C:\WINDOWS
Linux/BSD/Solaris/Unixes: /etc/hosts (must be root user)
BeOS: /boot/beos/etc/hosts

How does this work?

You'll have a line that looks like this:

127.0.0.1 ads.zdnet.com

What it does is anytime your computer tries to connect to ads.zdnet.com it'll be sent to your localhost AKA you're computer. What this does is makes the system pull up either an empty space or nothing at all when trying to connect to ads.zdnet.com

Get the file here.

After you have the file make any additions to it that you think you may need. If you believe we should add some more things to this file please post it in the forum.

After your modifications are made rename hosts.txt to hosts
No . (dot) anything JUST hosts.