system-config-network broken?

[Simon Andrews]

Marc Williams wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 12:30:58 +0100, Simon Andrews wrote:
> 
>> > Marc Williams wrote:
>> > About 26,000.  All of them (except my local entries, of course) point
>> > to 127.0.0.1. They're advertising, popup, and banner sites.
>>
>>Maybe it's time to look at:
>>http://adblock.mozdev.org/
> 
> Why?  What would that get me that I'm not getting now?

A much smaller hosts file? :-)

Seriously though, if you're having to block 26,000 separate hosts then 
it sounds like something's getting a bit out of control, and having a 
hosts file that long can't be good for your DNS lookups.

With the Adblock extension you can block using wildcards, so for 
instance you can block:

*/ad/*
*/banner/*

which will block a ton of sites straight off (including many you won't 
even have been to yet).  Your hosts file has loads of entries like:

127.0.0.1	ads.currantbun.com
127.0.0.1	ads.currantbun.net
127.0.0.1	ads.currantbun.org
127.0.0.1	ads.cyberfight.ru
127.0.0.1	ads.cyberprog.net
127.0.0.1	ads.cybersales.cz
127.0.0.1	ads.cybertrader.com
127.0.0.1	ads.cyop.org
127.0.0.1	ads.dada.it
127.0.0.1	ads.daemonnews.org
127.0.0.1	ads.dai.nl
127.0.0.1	ads.dailyjolt.com

A single AdBlock rule of ads.* will get the whole lot in one go.

Also, by using the hosts file you can only block a whole site, not just 
parts of it.  Say that I'm getting served ads from:

www.example.com/annoying_ads/

Using something like AdBlock you can block just that folder and still 
get to the rest of the content for example.com.

Lastly, the hosts solution will block all DNS resolution to that address 
which may screw up other parts of your system (you only need to block 
this stuff in a browser, right?).


> I'm reluctant to start bloating up my browser with extensions (I have two
> small ones now) unless there's a real benefit.

My whole AdBlock folder, including preferences = 86kb.

Your hosts file = 796kb

I'd not call the browser extension bloated.

 > As it is right now, I see few ads and there is no
> intervention required on my part.

Likewise for the soution I'm using.

There's always more than one way to approch these things, and if your 
solution works for you then stick with it.  However I'm a big fan of the 
right tool for the job, and I find a browser extension to be a better 
solution for selectively blocking content getting to my browser.

Cheers

Simon.