How To Block Ads And Spyware In Linux

[anil_robo]

Hi all! I'm seeing heated discussions on spyware for linux, and I think it's a well-suited time to post a useful tutorial here. By following these simple steps, you will be able to block most advertisement banners on webpages, virus-infected websites, spyware-infected websites, and other insecure websites.

Theory: In Linux, the file /etc/hosts contains information about how the system interprets website domain names. If you want to block a website, just make it point to 0.0.0.0 (e.g. www.site-to-be-blocked.com will point to 0.0.0.0 => The site won't open at all!).

How to: First, you need a good hosts file to install. The one I use is here.
Click on that link right now, and the file will open in a browser or a text editor. Select all the text in the file, and copy it.

Now open a terminal, and type

sudo gedit /etc/hosts

. Your hosts file should open up. This file may already have some entries in it, which we're not going to change. Go to the end of the file, and "paste" the contents of the hosts file you had copied to the clipboard earlier.
Save the hosts file, and it should be active. Just to be more sure, you might want to logout and relog to Ubuntu.

Now when you start browsing, you'll not see any ads, rather they'll simply fail to load! Here's a screenshot when I try to access an advertisement site (www.doubleclick.net):
Screenshot-Problem loading page - Mozilla Firefox.png

A lot of people have recommended using adblock extension for Firefox instead of this hosts-file blocking method. Adblock protects you against spyware/adware when you're surfing the internet through Firefox. But what about the other malicious things you can get through other programs? For example, in your email which you view through evolution? Since evolution accesses internet directly, I'd still go for blocking all the parasites through the hosts file.


This method does not work if you are using a proxy.

The host file structure changed with Ubuntu 8.10, so I doubt the same hosts file will work for Intrepid.

[Ali_Baba]

Sounds good,thanks for Howto. I have to try this

[Norberg]

Very nice How To

[guice]

You're using Firefox. Just install AdBlock.
There's even a Filter Updater extension for AdBlock, too, that'll auto-update when the list changes.

[evs]

Originally Posted by guice You're using Firefox. Just install AdBlock. There's even a Filter Updater extension for AdBlock, too, that'll auto-update when the list changes.

AdBlock is probably my favorite extension, along with the updater. I've been using Konqueror a lot more lately, too, so I exported the blocked sites list from Firefox to a file, and imported that into Konqueror's built-in adblock feature. It makes surfing the web so much more enjoyable.

[limit223]

Related to this subject,
If anyone noticed in firefox when you do about:config in browser address, filter: dns -- network.dns*=.doubleclick.net, change the value to true! (stay out of their dns)

[earobinson]

this could be used as a nanny lock to no?

[limit223]

well..it said that was implemented for speed but if you choose any other dns: mozilla.org , google would return no search.... True value works fine.

[Orunitia]

This just seemed to slow a lot of sites down for me. I took it back out of my host file and everything seemed to speed up again.

[Gandalf]

its normal to slow down sites that use one of the addresses u blocked, since your browser will keep trying a bit to connect to localhost untill it time out!!