Ad Blocker questions

I am on a dialup modem at home. I am using the Beta version of Google now that blocks many "pop" ups :-)

Years ago when I was using the Mac, I had an ad blocker where I could set certain words, phrases and that part of the web page would not load. Surfing was greatly speeded up.

I notice that many sites use "doubleclick" and"atwala" for loading many ads on web pages......grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I would like to find a freeware ad blocker where I could block certain ads from loading.

Trust me, if you go to the same web pages over and over again and the same ads load, blocking them speeds things up :-)

Is there such a product?

You can do that by adding the URL of many pop up companies to your host file as linking back to the local host (your PC). Basically, your host file will override where your browser is trying to take you, acting very similarly to a phone book.

A simple non-techie example: If you type "www.bargainshare.com" into your browser's address bar, your computer will take that information and look up the address for bargainshare.com at a server (a DNS server is what it is called) which your internet service provider uses. It will then take you to where that server tells it to go. If you put a "Hosts" file on your PC, your system will look up the address there before going to the DNS server. You are basically giving your browser a "wrong phone number". You tell it to find the website you are looking for on your own PC rather than the web. Of course, the site isn't on your PC, so it comes with a blank page.

A guy has a site dedicated to this sort of thing and even has all inclusive hosts files to download that block a LOT of websites. You may not want to block all of them, so you may be in for some editing.

However...it is FREE.

Hosts File Downloads

A How to: How to set up your hosts file

My new problem is that I get a whole bunch of these ads for popup blockers. It's very annoying. I ran ad-aware, but that still didn't fix it. Then I did some digging around and found out that the messenger in xp might have been giving me these problems. I disabled and blocked it, but the ads still keep coming.

These stupid ads are pretty damn annoying.

Any more ideas for me to try?

Should I try the thing that redart mentioned above?

are you getting windows that are from "Messenger Service" and they look just like windows popup windows? if so goto start, settings, control panel, then administrative tools, then Services, then look for Messenger, right click on it, properties, then disable it on startup (it's currently set to automatic) then stop it from running right now by clicking stop.

There is also a nasty adware going around called RapiBlaster that can evade your attempts to remove it by changing it's name to a needed Win file (like iexplorer, notepad.exe, etc). I found info on it in the Langalist that peekaboo listed. There is a removal tool called rbkiller that is supposed to be able to remove it. Rapidblaster will originate pop ups if it has gotten onto your system. I found the info here

The Proxomitron is extremely customizable...excellent popup blocker..

Proxomitron download

Proxomitron forum if you want to customize ~there's a ton of good info here, and nice people