Re: Since SP2, some ad frames in IE6 don't show up

From: Steve Portigal (steve_at_portigal.com)
Date: 11/28/04 

Date: 27 Nov 2004 20:00:08 -0800

> Not sure why, Steve. The above error *may* result from a HOSTS file
> entry

I think you're onto something...here's part of the HOSTS file

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 www.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.preferances.com
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.com
127.0.0.1 ads.web.aol.com
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.preferences.com
127.0.0.1 ad.washingtonpost.com
127.0.0.1 adpick.switchboard.com
127.0.0.1 ads.doubleclick.com
127.0.0.1 ads.infospace.com
127.0.0.1 ads.msn.com
127.0.0.1 ads.switchboard.com
127.0.0.1 ads.enliven.com
127.0.0.1 oz.valueclick.com
127.0.0.1 doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ads.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad2.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad3.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad4.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad5.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad6.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad7.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad8.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad9.doubleclick.net

etc.

It's dated October 4, and it's read-only.
And I see from http://www.beemerworld.com/tips/xphosts.htm that
<quote>
Blocking ad banners isn't all to difficult either.

Right click on the ad banner you wish to not receive, and from the
context menu select, "Properties". This will show you the address of
the ad banner.

If the address is not the main web host address, (e.g.:
ads.geocities.com) then you can make an entry in your "hosts" file.
It will look like this:

127.0.0.1 ads.geocities.com

127.0.0.1 is your computers, Internal IP address. You have directed
your computer to access files requested from ads.geocities.com from
the IP address of 127.0.0.1 .Your computer does not have the graphics
that are supposed to be downloaded from this site so you get an empty
frame where the graphic is supposed to be loaded on the page. If a
cookie was to be sent with the graphic, it won't be and no denial of
page either. Things speed up a little as well since you are not
downloading anything from the site you don't need or want to download.

</quote>

I'm not sure at all how that got set up. I tried making the file
writeable, but that wasn't enough. I opened it up and stripped out all
but the first line, and then did an ipconfig /flushdns (not sure that
I needed to) and it was fixed. Now I can see ads (yeah, maybe that's
not so good, but I was getting tired of seeing errors as well - as
much cognitive distraction as ads).

Thanks for the suggestion!

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