Blocking with HOSTS file
This morning as I was surfing around and looking for a cure from this annoying Trojan in my computer. The spyware isn’t active coz it keeps getting blocked by my anti-virus software. But the Trojan is still there and cannot be removed. Anyhow I came across this old familiar site which you can download a HOSTS file to help protect your browsing experience from unwanted annoyance.
A short non-technical explanation for this is that HOSTS file redirects (or blocks) unwanted websites. But it’s more than that, it can also block harmful websites and even ads. So I downloaded the latest HOSTS file and placed it in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC directory (for winXP) and that’s it. When you browse using your favorite browser like… ehem… Firefox, you won’t get annoyed by ads and feel more secure about the sites you go to.
Then the problems began. After I visited Tambayan.ph I noticed that my Google Adsense was not showing up. I thought it was only in my connection, but when I visited Darkmoon forums also the Google Ads didn’t appeared. Also as I’ve noticed my Statcounter stats are gone from both Tambayan.ph and Eternalmoonlight.net. Not only that even MyBlogLog is missing. Although StatCounter is considered a tracking cookie and constantly removed by my anti-spywares. But I use it to track traffic on my websites.
So I went back to that HOSTS file, opened it up in notepad then searched for queries like; Google, ADsense, MyBlogLog, StatCounter, and any other stuff I don’t want to block. It has a huge list, around 16,000+ lines… thank God for the invention of CTRL+F I was able to remove the entries that I don’t want blocked.
And about that Trojan I mentioned earlier, I think I will try the solution I found at this insightful and helpful article.
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