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These mostly serve one-pixel GIFs; sometimes I find one-byte javascript "sources". Put these in your hosts file: 127.0.0.1 aax.amazon-adsystem.com 127.

These mostly serve one-pixel GIFs; sometimes I find one-byte javascript "sources". Put these in your hosts file: 127.0.0.1 aax.amazon-adsystem.com 127.0.0.1 ad.crwdcntrl.net 127.0.0.1 b.scorecardresearch.com 127.0.0.1 gs.dailymail.co.uk 127.0.0.1 gum.criteo.com 127.0.0.1 i.dailymail.co.uk 127.0.0.1 moat.pxl.ace.advertising.com 127.0.0.1 pixel.mathtag.com 127.0.0.1 pq-direct.revsci.net 127.0.0.1 rta.dailymail.co.uk 127.0.0.1 sync.go.sonobi.com 127.0.0.1 t.dailymail.co.uk 127.0.0.1 ted.dailymail.co.uk 127.0.0.1 x.bidswitch.net 127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com 127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com 127.0.0.1 www.hosted-pixel.com Search with https://www.duckduckgo.com/ https://www.duckduckgo.com/ For extra credit use DuckDuckGo's Tor Hidden Service.

psykovsky 12y ago
I very much prefer this one http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt Edit: I see some of the ones you posted are not on the file.
eterm 12y ago
You shouldn't use loopback to block hostnames but instead use 0.0.0.0
- MichaelCrawford 12y ago
  I understand that 0.0.0.0 is the local subnet broadcast address. Is that really the case? I've puzzled over using 127.0.0.2. What I really want to get is an RST immediately upon sending a SYN.
- middleclick 12y ago
  Can you please explain why?
  - userbinator 12y ago
    0.0.0.0 is a completely invalid destination IP, and any attempts to establish a connection to it will fail long before any packets are sent. 127.0.0.1 is still valid so you depend on the network stack to either receive a RST sent to itself, or time out. At least on Windows, the former is much faster to return with an error. It also avoids potential conflicts if you happen to need to run a server on port 80 for any reason.
    - MichaelCrawford 12y ago
      When I ping 0.0.0.0, I get replies from 69.41.141.1. I don't know but expect that's earthlink's router.
      - userbinator 12y ago
        That's odd... on Windows, pinging 0.0.0.0 results in "Destination specified is invalid." On *nix, the behaviour is slightly different and is supposed to ping localhost instead (confirmed on one of my Linux machines): http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/99336/how-does-ping-zero-works http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/99336/how-does-ping-...
        MichaelCrawford 12y ago
        Do the RFCs have anything to say about 0.0.0.0? Perhaps it is left up to the implementation, in which case both Windows and *NIX would be, strictly speaking, correct.
    - seanp2k2 12y ago
      This isn't true on non-windows OSes, where 0.0.0.0 (or simply 0) means all interfaces, not nothing. ssh to a web server and do curl 0 ; it's a super-useful shortcut. Further reading: http://serverfault.com/questions/78048/whats-the-difference-between-ip-address-0-0-0-0-and-127-0-0- http://serverfault.com/questions/78048/whats-the-difference-... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.0.0.0 http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.0.0.0
- gizmo686 12y ago
  When I ping 0.0.0.0, I get replies from 127.0.0.1 (running Ubuntu 14.04).
MichaelCrawford 12y ago
Strictly speaking a one-pixel gif could be legitimate. What I find especially sketchy is that the URLs that my browser actually fetches are huge, long and full of query parameters.
- xxxyy 12y ago
  I do not want one-pixel gifs, because the only use of such techniques is exploiting the HTTP "referer" field.
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    They used to be somewhat legitimately used for spacing and sizing table-based HTML layouts (through the mid-2000s or so). That's rarely done today -- layout is in CSS and gifs are generally used for tracking.
thejosh 12y ago
Or use uBlock or similar as well.
- scrollaway 12y ago
  Recommended privacy extensions: - Privacy Badger by the EFF: https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger - uBlock Origin (blocks ads as well): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpa... - HTTPS Everywhere by the EFF: https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere I recommend running all three, they each do a different job and cover all the bases. If you are on Firefox, RequestPolicy (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/requestpolicy/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/requestpolicy...) is also useful but I find PrivacyBadger simply does the job better.
dredmorbius 12y ago
Of that set, only these weren't in the comprehensive (60k+) hosts included in the Chrome extension uMatrix's hosts files (I've added these to my own /etc/hosts file): gs.dailymail.co.uk gum.criteo.com i.dailymail.co.uk moat.pxl.ace.advertising.com www.hosted-pixel.com I strongly recommend using a hosts file these days, as well as tools such as uMatrix, privoxy, and where possible, Tor (more discussion below). And thanks, by the way.
- lifeisstillgood 12y ago
  Since by far my browsing is done on an iPhone, any recommendations for dealing with hosts files? I am guessing scriptable solutions like Firefox but t be honest I mentally gave up when I don't have root
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    Not sure about iPhone, but there are AdBlock plugins for Android, and the hosts file itself is accessible if you jailbreak. Better: install CyanogenMod.
  - vdm 12y ago
    VPN + Privoxy.
  - banetadblock 12y ago
    http://ba.net/adblock http://ba.net/adblock is geared for iPhone iPad
MichaelCrawford 12y ago
I built this list with the Activity window from an old release of Safari. I expect there's lots of ways you could do it, I often contemplate such ways but this way works pretty well. Just open the Activity window then visit a few random, at least somewhat sketchy websites. Pop-culture news sites are good. You'll see lots of 43 or 60 byte GIFs, commonly they will have lots of query parameters in the URLs, sometimes I see one-byte javascripts.
- GoodIntentions 12y ago
  https://www.requestpolicy.com/ https://www.requestpolicy.com/ is useful in this regard as well. - Firefox plugin to block cross-domain content. lots of websites pull shit from 20+ 3rd party domains. An obnoxious number of sites block/don't render completely ( or at all ) without allowing shit from all over the web to load.
  - Tanath 12y ago
    I used to use RequestPolicy, but found Policeman is better.
api 12y ago
I use DDG as my primary search now. Have been for months. It's getting a lot better. I'd say it's as good as Google about 95% of the time now. For about 5% of queries I end up bumping over to Google, but over time that's shrunk from ~15% of queries.
- el_benhameen 12y ago
  Have you noticed any particular classes of search for which Google is still better than DDG?
  - api 12y ago
    Hmm... hard to say, but the first thing to comes to mind is programming-oriented stuff. Google tends to find a more accurate hit there sometimes. Google also seems to do a better job filtering out spammy stuff like those irritating portal pottie sites that clone StackOverflow or mailing list content. My pattern is if DDG finds nothing of value or brings up too much noise, hop over to Google and sometimes it does better. If I can't find it via either search engine it's probably not out there. I will say that there's rarely a case where Google is worse than DDG... unless you count the tracking and near-monopoly issues but those are peripheral to the core function.
  - derf_ 12y ago
    Not a class of searches, but a feature: DDG does not have an equivalent of Google's time-based searches (e.g., last 24 hours, last week, etc.).
- FatalBaboon 12y ago
  I've been using DDG for over a year now, and I haven't had to bump over to Google for a long time. In fact with the bangs I search pretty much everything with it. I do wish the "defaults" were more trackless oriented though, for example, !i searches images... on google images.
banetadblock 12y ago
http://ba.net/adblock http://ba.net/adblock seems to block all these. They list 180k blocked ad and malware domains
heliodor 12y ago
Nobody told me before that DDG has infinite scrolling! I'm sold!
- MichaelCrawford 12y ago
  I regard infinite scrolling as a Tool of the Devil.
  - awkward 12y ago
    I sometimes agree, but it seems pretty useful for search results. I mean, do you often find yourself bookmarking the second page of a google search?
kw71 12y ago
See http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/ http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/ for a nice comprehensive list of hosts to block.
- clumsysmurf 12y ago
  Anyone know how this compares to http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ ?
  - jakeogh 12y ago
    This merges the two of the common lists, easy to add more: https://github.com/jakeogh/dnsmasq-blacklist https://github.com/jakeogh/dnsmasq-blacklist

psykovsky 12y ago

I very much prefer this one http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt Edit: I see some of the ones you posted are not on the file.

eterm 12y ago

You shouldn't use loopback to block hostnames but instead use 0.0.0.0

MichaelCrawford 12y ago
I understand that 0.0.0.0 is the local subnet broadcast address. Is that really the case? I've puzzled over using 127.0.0.2. What I really want to get is an RST immediately upon sending a SYN.
middleclick 12y ago
Can you please explain why?
- userbinator 12y ago
  0.0.0.0 is a completely invalid destination IP, and any attempts to establish a connection to it will fail long before any packets are sent. 127.0.0.1 is still valid so you depend on the network stack to either receive a RST sent to itself, or time out. At least on Windows, the former is much faster to return with an error. It also avoids potential conflicts if you happen to need to run a server on port 80 for any reason.
  - MichaelCrawford 12y ago
    When I ping 0.0.0.0, I get replies from 69.41.141.1. I don't know but expect that's earthlink's router.
    - userbinator 12y ago
      That's odd... on Windows, pinging 0.0.0.0 results in "Destination specified is invalid." On *nix, the behaviour is slightly different and is supposed to ping localhost instead (confirmed on one of my Linux machines): http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/99336/how-does-ping-zero-works http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/99336/how-does-ping-...
      - MichaelCrawford 12y ago
        Do the RFCs have anything to say about 0.0.0.0? Perhaps it is left up to the implementation, in which case both Windows and *NIX would be, strictly speaking, correct.
  - seanp2k2 12y ago
    This isn't true on non-windows OSes, where 0.0.0.0 (or simply 0) means all interfaces, not nothing. ssh to a web server and do curl 0 ; it's a super-useful shortcut. Further reading: http://serverfault.com/questions/78048/whats-the-difference-between-ip-address-0-0-0-0-and-127-0-0- http://serverfault.com/questions/78048/whats-the-difference-... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.0.0.0 http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.0.0.0
gizmo686 12y ago
When I ping 0.0.0.0, I get replies from 127.0.0.1 (running Ubuntu 14.04).

MichaelCrawford 12y ago

Strictly speaking a one-pixel gif could be legitimate. What I find especially sketchy is that the URLs that my browser actually fetches are huge, long and full of query parameters.

xxxyy 12y ago
I do not want one-pixel gifs, because the only use of such techniques is exploiting the HTTP "referer" field.
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  They used to be somewhat legitimately used for spacing and sizing table-based HTML layouts (through the mid-2000s or so). That's rarely done today -- layout is in CSS and gifs are generally used for tracking.

thejosh 12y ago

Or use uBlock or similar as well.

scrollaway 12y ago
Recommended privacy extensions: - Privacy Badger by the EFF: https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger - uBlock Origin (blocks ads as well): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpa... - HTTPS Everywhere by the EFF: https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere I recommend running all three, they each do a different job and cover all the bases. If you are on Firefox, RequestPolicy (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/requestpolicy/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/requestpolicy...) is also useful but I find PrivacyBadger simply does the job better.

dredmorbius 12y ago

Of that set, only these weren't in the comprehensive (60k+) hosts included in the Chrome extension uMatrix's hosts files (I've added these to my own /etc/hosts file): gs.dailymail.co.uk gum.criteo.com i.dailymail.co.uk moat.pxl.ace.advertising.com www.hosted-pixel.com I strongly recommend using a hosts file these days, as well as tools such as uMatrix, privoxy, and where possible, Tor (more discussion below). And thanks, by the way.

lifeisstillgood 12y ago
Since by far my browsing is done on an iPhone, any recommendations for dealing with hosts files? I am guessing scriptable solutions like Firefox but t be honest I mentally gave up when I don't have root
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  Not sure about iPhone, but there are AdBlock plugins for Android, and the hosts file itself is accessible if you jailbreak. Better: install CyanogenMod.
- vdm 12y ago
  VPN + Privoxy.
- banetadblock 12y ago
  http://ba.net/adblock http://ba.net/adblock is geared for iPhone iPad

MichaelCrawford 12y ago

I built this list with the Activity window from an old release of Safari. I expect there's lots of ways you could do it, I often contemplate such ways but this way works pretty well. Just open the Activity window then visit a few random, at least somewhat sketchy websites. Pop-culture news sites are good. You'll see lots of 43 or 60 byte GIFs, commonly they will have lots of query parameters in the URLs, sometimes I see one-byte javascripts.

GoodIntentions 12y ago
https://www.requestpolicy.com/ https://www.requestpolicy.com/ is useful in this regard as well. - Firefox plugin to block cross-domain content. lots of websites pull shit from 20+ 3rd party domains. An obnoxious number of sites block/don't render completely ( or at all ) without allowing shit from all over the web to load.
- Tanath 12y ago
  I used to use RequestPolicy, but found Policeman is better.

api 12y ago

I use DDG as my primary search now. Have been for months. It's getting a lot better. I'd say it's as good as Google about 95% of the time now. For about 5% of queries I end up bumping over to Google, but over time that's shrunk from ~15% of queries.

el_benhameen 12y ago
Have you noticed any particular classes of search for which Google is still better than DDG?
- api 12y ago
  Hmm... hard to say, but the first thing to comes to mind is programming-oriented stuff. Google tends to find a more accurate hit there sometimes. Google also seems to do a better job filtering out spammy stuff like those irritating portal pottie sites that clone StackOverflow or mailing list content. My pattern is if DDG finds nothing of value or brings up too much noise, hop over to Google and sometimes it does better. If I can't find it via either search engine it's probably not out there. I will say that there's rarely a case where Google is worse than DDG... unless you count the tracking and near-monopoly issues but those are peripheral to the core function.
- derf_ 12y ago
  Not a class of searches, but a feature: DDG does not have an equivalent of Google's time-based searches (e.g., last 24 hours, last week, etc.).
FatalBaboon 12y ago
I've been using DDG for over a year now, and I haven't had to bump over to Google for a long time. In fact with the bangs I search pretty much everything with it. I do wish the "defaults" were more trackless oriented though, for example, !i searches images... on google images.

banetadblock 12y ago

http://ba.net/adblock http://ba.net/adblock seems to block all these. They list 180k blocked ad and malware domains

heliodor 12y ago

Nobody told me before that DDG has infinite scrolling! I'm sold!

MichaelCrawford 12y ago
I regard infinite scrolling as a Tool of the Devil.
- awkward 12y ago
  I sometimes agree, but it seems pretty useful for search results. I mean, do you often find yourself bookmarking the second page of a google search?

kw71 12y ago

See http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/ http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/ for a nice comprehensive list of hosts to block.

clumsysmurf 12y ago
Anyone know how this compares to http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ ?
- jakeogh 12y ago
  This merges the two of the common lists, easy to add more: https://github.com/jakeogh/dnsmasq-blacklist https://github.com/jakeogh/dnsmasq-blacklist