MX-19 adblock

[bigdog100]

So I was looking around under settings and I saw AdBlock. I dislike ads so I took a look. It asks you to pick a service...
mvps.org: this one was unsecure, and doesn't seem to be about AdBlock
someonewhocares.org: not sure about Daniel Polluck
yoyo.org: this one seems legit
adservers.org: website is not available
UNBLOCK: not sure about this one

So I'm sure how it actually works when you select one but I would have selected yoyo.org. I didn't select anything because I'm not really sure what I'm doing so I'm cautious...this coming from a guy that 4-5 years ago used to reload Windows if I suspected my PC had a virus.

So I'm so new to Linux that I technically can't even be called green...

How is the AdBlock suppose to work? Are those choices above valid? Am I just bonkers?

Thanks for your help!

[manyroads]

[...] Am I just bonkers?

Thanks for your help!

Would you really like an answer to that question? I don't know you very well....

As for the tool I select everything but the last item. So far the earth remains in its orbit around the sun, and the moon seems unaffected.

[Stevo]

They prevent connections to URLs that serve ads to your browser. I'd also add the Ublock Origin extension to your browser at the minimum, and I'm sure others will suggest other privacy extensions you can add, such as Ghostery.

[bigbenaugust]

That application pulls files with lists of known ad servers from the sites you check and compiles them all together (into your /etc/hosts file) to route all connections to the ad servers listed in those files to localhost, effectively blocking them. Not 100% effective, but a great start.

[fehlix]

So I'm sure how it actually works

It works in away that it set the locale hosts table, for all "identified" "bad"ad-hosts (dns) name
to a a local ip address of 127.0.0.1. Some other tool prefer to set it "0.0.0.0".
So any requests with any tool (browser or other), which try to reach those "bad" hosts, will
be served blocked to get out into the net.
BTW, uBlock-orign is also partly using some of those known bad-hosts.
Those hosts-table block technique works on Linux and also Windows.

[andyprough]

mvps.org: this one was unsecure, and doesn't seem to be about AdBlock

Info on MVPS is at http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

That page also gives some good info on how a hosts file works to prevent unwanted ads and malware. From my limited understanding, MVPS is apparently one of the oldest and most respected hosts file services in the business.