This is a little trick to surf with less ads.
-Step one-
Locate the hosts file:
WinXP/2K =%SYSTEMDRIVE%\%windir%\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC
Win 98\ME =%SYSTEMDRIVE%\%windir%\

There you'll see a file called 'hosts' .

-Step two-
Download the hosts file
Now you can add hosts to the hosts file or simply download a complete hosts file.
The above one is from http://www.mvps.org/ and it's a great one.

If you want to add a site url, you can do this like this:


-Step three-
Understanding how this works.
It fairly simple. What this file does is remapping the domains to 127.0.0.1. 127.0.0.* is used by nothing on the internet, it doesn't exist, but if you ping, you'll get an answer from your own pc.
Example:
If a site want to load an image (http://www.domain.com/justanexample.gif) from http://www.domain.com, then it will go to http://127.0.0.1/justanexample.gif for the image and since it doesn't exist, it won't show.

-Step four-
Reboot. It's not always needed, but just reboot to be shure.

-Problems-
Yes, this simple hack can cause some problems, some sites wait before they get an answer from the sponsor (ie. google ads) and the site will work very slow or totaly not. You can simply rename the hosts file as long as needed and after the visit you can rename it 'hosts' again to surf with less ads.

Changing the host file is one good approach to minimize ads on the websites you visit. And it is one of the oldest methods.

Remember junkbuster? It installed a proxy on your own machine and you had to exclude ad-hosting domains in a text file. Things improved with Proxomitron (Google search) which has a partly graphical userface. It also works as a local proxy. I strongly recommend it.

Nowadays it's easy. Even IE now comes with a pop-up blocker, and the easiest way to individually block ads is for sure the Firefox extension Adblock.

The differences between Proxomitron and Adblock are big though. Adblock downloads the ad and hides it, while Proxomitron replaces the ad with a small hint like [Ad]. It is also able to replace anything on any webpage. That includes frames (ads are frequently put in frames). You could read the New York Times and have a frame on top with the contents of a webcam from African wildlife. Still, the webpage you are visiting would load much quicker than with all the ads. If you overedo it though it might turn out that some other features of the webpage willl not work. I personally find it quite hard to filter out google ads without harming the site's functionality. But those bother me the least, this blinking flash s**t is an other story though. With Proxomitron you can set up different config files which you can change with a mouseclick. Comes in hany when you see nothing but ads on a site. If you've been to some chinese websites you know what I mean.

Give Proxomitron a try! go to proxomitron.info and do some reading. The original developer has left the program long ago, even the domain is up for sale now. *thinking of grabbing it* The program is so powerful that a developer who started using it called it "the second most powerful script after HTML/PHP". I could not judge, I just use it and see very few ads without compromizing the site's functionality.

curare

Thank you for this, I have been looking for it for a long time. I am tired of surfing and getting about twenty adds. This is a big help and thank you, I really mean it.

If you need anything ask me because I need to return the favor.

Although related to stopping bad stuff from entering your machine, the following isn't an ad stopper per se. This is a black list designed solely for Intenet Explorer.

It's called IESpyAD and is available from the University Of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Link here

Essentially, it maintains a list of sites and domains associated with known advertisers, marketers, and crapware pushers to the Restricted sites zone of Internet Explorer. Once you merge this list of sites and domains into the Registry, the web sites for these companies will not be able to use cookies, ActiveX controls, Java applets, or scripting to compromise your privacy or your PC while you surf the Net. Nor will they be able to use your browser to push unwanted pop-ups, cookies, or auto-installing programs on your PC.

This is of course a preventive measure and not intended to lean your machine if it is infected.

Incredible how many options to prevent yourself from staring at these friggin' ads have accumulated here in just a couple of days. It shows the effectiveness of collaboration with tools like discussion boards. Even as an internet veteran of 11+ years I am amazed. Mostly because there are millions of discussion boards out there and clearly one cannot follow them all in due time. So I concentrate my activities on only a couple of them where I read most posts. And this community is a good example how it can work.

Cheers!

curare

I am using AD Muncher it is a really great application that will stop all ads from every webpage easily.It works on all browsers and programs like Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger etc.
I am an Opera user so it do have built in ad blocking also.But with ad muncher I can't even see google adsense ads..

I know this thread is little old, love to know what are your current strategy.

Wow thanks guys, I always made sure that my host file was clean, i never new it could block certain websies. Though, wouln't this configuration slow down browsing, to verify the web address. Anyways, ill try going to one of thos esites and see what will happen.

Well, for those who wants more control on this and don't want to do anything manually, I would like to offer to use Privoxy, which is available on a lot of operating System and it really works, I never see pop-ups I don't want I never see ads and it saves me time, because they never get loaded, but it works similar as above, just with much more configuration abilities, get it at: http://www.privoxy.org

After you install it, you just need to use it as a proxy in your network settings as 127.0.0.1:8118, but if you already are using a proxy in the privoxy configuration you can forward to your proxy and whola. At first it can look quite hard to configure, but for more than 4 years I am satisfied with it and I don't need any other stupid programs to block something.. And if you want to see the ads for some reason, just disable proxy from the menu on Opera, on Firefox use Direct Connection option and etc.

Or, do what you should do anyway, get Opera. Then do what I do, turn frames off.

Hey sorry, this might sound ignorant but what's the difference between the programs listed above and the adblock plugin for firefox?
That's what I am using, the adblock plugin.
It also has a blacklist and can also be updated.
It's works fine for my pc and laptop, so what is the advantage of using such programs?
Am I right that those programs can blacklist whole sites (domains) where adblock is only capable of blocking certain aspects of the site (popups,pictures)
And also since they are blacklisted they don't get loaded (saves bandwith)?
But I think adblock restricts certain images from loading too, or will they just simply never be displayed?
So the only advantage I see is, If you want to blacklist _whole_ domains you will use such tools.
e.g when a popup tries to load a certain domain it redirects you to your own computer?!