Use Dan Pollock’s hosts file, which is kept up to date regularly, to prevent your computer from connecting to selected
internet hosts. This is an excellent way to protect your PC from buckets of spyware, prevent a load of ad-based pop-up traps, and prevent those damn “web bugs” embedded in spam from contacting their sites for user tracking etc.
This block-list provides good protection to IE from certain web-based exploits and blocks most advertising you would otherwise be subjected to on the internet.
All you need do is copy and paste all the text on Dan’s page (except the last line which is the file’s date) into your own hosts file. Remember to do this fairly regularly. This will even bring down your bandwidth use a bit. Even add your own entries to keep your machine from accessing various sites for Parental or other reasons.
Not sure about using hosts files? It’s safe and easy, have a look at a wiki or even a quick how-to article or try these instructions if you’re unfortunate enough to run Vista.
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