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How to lower probability of being tracked by advert sites ...

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drygol:
.. and tracking cookies , and getting you personal data being sold to third parties etc etc etc.
Yesterday I was looking for such solution. What I have found is quite brilliant  :D I should have got to that looooong time ago :D
This is simple and it works.

There is a website with updated hosts file.
Hosts file is a file on your local computer that translates domain names to IP adresses before your system makes a request to name server outside.
Another part of puzzle is an IP 127.0.0.1 which is a special IP that points to you machine . In other words this is your localhost , your machine.
Idea here is to direct domain names of advert hosts to you localhost :D :D :D
How it works ? So when you open a website with embedded adverts , your browser starts to download data from that website , but except for that , because of embedded code to external websites (adverts) , it also starts to download all that data from external servers - and we don't want that ,unless you like ads ;P and the fact that you are being tracked ;P.
For example, If you put such line to a hosts file:

127.0.0.1  googleadservices.com

when you go to a website that uses googleadservices.com for ads displaying , your browser will be unable to get to googleads because hosts file will point it to your localhost which is your machine , which does not have ads server :D brilliant isn't it ? :P

Ok, if my description is lame , go through better ones on a website with updated hosts file along with instructions.

Here are the links:

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm <--- general info
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt   <--- hosts file itself

Bobo08:
Thanks for sharing, drygol. I just try it and it works. It is indeed a simple and elegant solution. I can understand your enthusiasm :)

Note that the ad blocking is only as good as the file list and can never be complete. Nevertheless, I check the file and it is quite extensive. It should be able to block the most obvious sources of ads.

drygol:

--- Quote ---Note that the ad blocking is only as good as the file list and can never be complete. Nevertheless, I check the file and it is quite extensive. It should be able to block the most obvious sources of ads.
--- End quote ---

Exactly , i should have pointed that out.
Anyways , this solution is very easy for general internet users , and it works as a charm. Still you can extend it by adding your own finds.

Kaigen:
Is indeed very simple to install, make shore your Antivirus program allow this action.
Open your Host file in Text editor to make any changes.

drygol:
Just curious , which AV complains about editing this text file ? because it shouldn't afaik .... but hey , again i am not a windows guy so i may not know :D

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