Comments on: In Computer News

By: Badtux

Badtux — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 16:48:16 +0000

Yeah, I tried an adblock-popup-killer. But after Forbes did an adblock-popup-killer-killer and the adblock-popup-killer released an adblock-popup-killer-killer-killer I realized that being in the middle of an escalating arms race was ridiculous and simply plopped them into my hosts file blackhole list.

Basically, my hosts file gets filled with whoever is annoying me at a particular time, I don’t put a lot of sites there. Pinterest got in there for example because they wanted me to join their site just to view a single image linked to from some other site, and again I know how to disable that join pane that swipes down across the image, but why deal with assholes? One thing I also do is blackhole them in my Google account so they no longer show up in my Google search results. Unfortunately Google removed the feature to do this (because it interfered with their advertising algorithm apparently) so you have to use a browser extension to do it now, “Google Block List”. Sigh.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 08:48:22 +0000

Oh! I meant to add this to my 1st comment above. Been kinda hectic the past week. *shrug*

People I chat with online have reported success with this Anti-Adblock Killer from reek.

I haven’t tried it as I haven’t had a need to yet. 🙂 It’s a script that works with Greasemonkey (Firefox) and Tampermonkey (Chrome (and derivatives like Torch), Opera, Safari).

And some other lists I used in adition to the above when I did use Adblock (or uBlock which some say is better than Adblock/AB Plus/AB Pro):

EasyPrivacy‎
Spam404
Anti-ThirdpartySocial
Fanboy’s Enhanced Tracking List‎
Fanboy’s Annoyance List
Rickroll Blacklist
Block-EU-Cookie-Shit-List
Facebook Annoyances Blocker
Adblock Warning Removal List

I still prefer using a modded hosts file. 🙂

By: Badtux

Badtux — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 03:32:30 +0000

One problem with reviews in the old day print media was that you’d be writing the reviews with pre-release versions of the software a minimum of three months ahead of the magazine hitting the news stands. I remember one review I wrote on a RAID card that actually took *six* months to hit the news stands. So there was an excuse for that sort of sloppiness back in the day. Nowadays, when it takes maybe a couple of hours to clean up, edit, and proofread a review before hitting “Publish” and having it appear on the web, there’s no excuse for that.

One reason Rolling Stone still has great political coverage is because their music advertising covers the bill and music advertisers don’t care what political coverage is running as long as it’s not espousing neo-Nazi views or something similarly beyond the pale. Their coverage of the music industry itself is… nuanced… in order to keep from offending their industry advertisers, but when it comes to politics they’re still no holds barred. “All the news that fits”, indeed.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 03:23:44 +0000

Business always affects editorial policy and anyone who claims different is lying or delusional.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 01:05:34 +0000

Around 1989-91 I was a part-time reviewer for ComputerWorld mag. I did a review of AutoCAD 10 (I think it was) and it was terrible! Example: I created a simple square and flood filled it. The whole page filled in (slowly)! I tried various shapes and it happened time and again. It was obvious that where the vertices met, they didn’t join properly. There were several other issues also. So I wrote a scathing review. They were an advertiser. The editor told me to tone it down and focus on the positives, he stated that AutoDesk were working on the issues and they would be fixed by the time the edition was published. I said I’d be happy to run another review when the issues were fixed. We argued, and I quit. It wasn’t the only time I was asked to *fix* a review.

Money always talks loudest.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 16:38:56 +0000

The problem I have always had with advertising-supported media is my innate suspicion that advertisers have undue influence on the content. That is less a problem on the ‘Net than with paper or TV journalism, but too many people have discovered their inner Gordon Gekko when they achieve a modicum of success and believe that those who use ad blockers are thieves apparently siphoning off the vital fluid that is the output from their imagination. F**k them if they can’t take a joke!

By: Badtux

Badtux — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 08:30:12 +0000

I have come to the conclusion that if a site blocks me because I run an ad blocker, then I don’t want to use that site. It then goes into my hosts file blackhole list so I don’t accidentally ever click on it again. At some point enough people will do this to make traffic drop off measurably, but until then, at least I don’t have to support a$$holes — and yes, anybody who would do this to their customers is an a$$hole.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 02:27:18 +0000

I don’t see the point of blocking people who use ad blockers when you don’t make a good faith effort to protect them from malware. People who subscribe to a site should get an ad free version, like Weather Underground does now.

People are not willing to pay for being annoyed.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 06:00:18 +0000

Hmmmm… I should add that the last link is to a blog maintained by Giorgio Maone, creator of NoScript & FlashGot. I’ve been following (and chatting with) him for about a decade. He’s won more of my respect than just about anyone else out there in regards to ‘Internet Security’. He’s also co-founder of an Italian IT company called “InformAction” (1997).

He is a target of a lot of FUD, especially by the Mozilla Firefox community as he often accuses (with proof) several of them of being sloppy and generally poor developers. 🙂

Example: CrossFUD: an Analysis of Inflated Research and Sloppy Reporting

And so it go’s… It’s sad that good development of pretty much everything is retarded by inflated ego’s. *shrug*

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 05:26:01 +0000

A lot of sites are now using ad block checking and won’t allow access unless the ad blocker is disabled. I’ve been using a modded hosts file for years now, and it does a better job and is faster anyway since the ad domains are completely *blocked* rather than having to check each page as it loads.

I use Abelhadigital HostMan to manage the hosts file & the lists which are updated regularly. Lists I prefer include:

MVPS Hosts
hpHosts (Ad and Tracking Servers only)
Peter Lowe’s AdServers List
Cameleon
Malware Domain List
SomeoneWhoCares

I also used the SpyEyeTrackers list, but it was discontinued (was a project of a Swiss Security blog ‘abuse.ch’. They have a new Ransomeware Tracker I’m trying out.

They also have what is probably the best SSL Blacklist (SSLBL) given that a significant amount of malware is now served via SSL.

Anyway, the upshot is that my browsing is a lot faster, I use less bandwidth and adblock detectors are useless. 🙂 My hosts file currently has about 35,000 domains blocked, including over 2 dozen (and growing) belonging to M$ and a dozen from Adobe.

BTW, I don’t use localhost – 127.0.0.1 (the local loopback IP) as my domain block IP!

1. It’s not a legitimate invalid address,
2. When using apache or any web server, the log file becomes huge & the server works harder!

A better and legitimate invalid address is of course: 255.255.255.0 It works much better! 🙂 Also of course, using 255… means that the FIRST rule in hosts MUST be (and should always be anyway):

127.0.0.1 localhost

Info about the above on this old, but relevant, reference (2009) site: ABE Warnings Everywhere OMG!

Hope this helps.

Oh, if anyone wants a list of malicious M$ & adobe domains, let me know. I maintain those lists, and a couple others. 🙂