HOW TO block IFRAME based ads

The scourge of pop-up ads has been contained largely by the built-in pop-up blockers of some of the new browsers and browser toolbars. There is however a new epidemic - insensitive and intruding iframe ads. With some cunning web page formatting there are websites that trick visitors into clicking links camouflaged as genuine content with context sensitive ads.

There is a luckily a simple way of blocking these iframe intrusions. The solution is to add the URL of the offending website generating the ad to the Windows HOSTS file (Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts) and set it to a dummy address.

This tip applies to Windows based computers.

This technique doesn’t work if your connection to the internet goes through a proxy server (e.g. at a school or many businesses). When you are behind a proxy, the proxy performs DNS lookups on your behalf, and the local HOSTS file is ignored.

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