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Steve's ad-block firewall list

[Note: 20011015 I recently gave up on Norton Internet Security and switched to using ZoneAlarm Pro and AdSubtract Pro. I will soon rewrite this. I am extremely pleased with them and I no longer recommend using NIS.]

[Note: 20030318 ZoneAlarm Pro ended up being responsible for all the annoying blue screens I was getting in WinXP. Once I got rid of it, my system became a lot more reliable. I have changed tools again, and now I recommend using The Proxomitron.]

This will get updated periodically. I've constructed this list by occasionally looking at the logs from my firewall as I browse, and noticing spurious (from my point of view) requests to irrelevant (from my point of view) sites during the loading of pages from sites I visit.

site comment	IP or IP range
a.r.tv.com	192.215.32.130
adcreatives.imaginemedia.com	209.246.21.197
AdForce	207.211.106.201
AdFlow	216.151.100.246
ad.linksynergy.com	64.209.192.109
ad.adtraq.com	209.85.239.227
ads01.focalink.com	216.35.153.170
ads02.focalink.com	64.41.202.90
ads05.focalink.com	64.41.202.71
adserver.ugo.com	205.229.74.190
associmg.com	208.192.209.17
au1.doubleclick.net	203.147.254.136
Avenue A	216.34.88.104
view.avenuea.com	216.34.88.200
Burstnet	128.11.42.61
classic.adlink.de	192.85.241.135
some CNet ads	216.200.247.135
home.cnet.com	216.200.247.133
www.dailydirt.com	207.236.112.109
images.cybereps.com	209.249.170.102
Doubleclick 1	204.253.104.0-204.253.105.255
Doubleclick 2	205.138.3.0-205.138.3.255
Doubleclick 3	208.10.202.0-208.10.202.255
Doubleclick 4	63.160.54.0-63.160.54.255
Doubleclick 5	63.166.98.0-63.166.98.255
Doubleclick 6	208.228.86.0-208.228.86.255
Doubleclick 7	208.32.211.0-208.32.211.255
Doubleclick 8	63.251.188.0-63.251.191.255
Doubleclick 9	63.168.198.0-63.168.198.127
Doubleclick UK	213.86.246.0-213.86.246.255
efront.com	64.156.174.50
www2.efront.com	64.209.141.234
zdads.e-media.com	208.184.238.161
euniverse.com	216.240.130.0-216.240.130.255
www.findcommerce.com	209.190.244.232
Flycast	216.52.4.0-216.52.7.255
gameadexchange.com	205.232.65.72
HomeEmployed	64.77.82.113
Link Exchange	204.71.191.0-204.71.191.255
link4ads.com	209.225.32.5-209.225.32.6
van.ads.link4ads.com	209.225.2.218
linksynergy.com	64.209.192.96-64.209.192.127
maximumpc.usads.futurenet.com	209.246.21.66
nav.efront.com	64.209.141.236
netadsrv.iworld.com	63.236.73.30
ngadclient.hearme.com	216.35.30.176
safe-audit	209.190.244.237
www.referback.com	64.39.74.152
spylog.com	194.67.35.205
stats.superstats.com	206.132.75.112
svr2.iadnet.com	207.189.82.138
ads.tucows.com	216.40.32.140
webconnect.net	63.77.84.8
secure.webconnect.net	63.77.84.10
www.whispa.com	209.190.244.233
us.a1.yimg.com	192.215.32.133
ads3.zdnet.com	205.181.112.81
gserv-cnet.zdnet.com	205.181.112.76
NEW 20010402
InternetFuel.com	209.132.218.64-209.132.218.127
NetTaxi	209.132.226.21
FastClick.com	205.180.85.6
AdMonitor.net	216.35.185.251
L90	216.35.185.251
something, I'm not sure what	63.236.54.27
comtrad.com	199.170.229.254
ads.nytimes.com	208.48.26.229
adtegrity.spinbox.net	204.176.36.72
us.geo1.yimg.com	216.148.237.147
Excite's ad server	199.172.144.25
NEW 20010404
doubleclick 10	208.184.29.0-208.184.29.255
doubleclick 11	209.68.38.104
doubleclick 12	209.67.38.106

This doesn't by any means stop everything, but this does stop a lot, including some of the most obnoxious advertising. More important, it stops requests from going to some of the most egregious companies involved in tracking your web browsing. If they get no request from you (because it is blocked in your firewall) then they can't see where you've been.

If your firewall uses a hierarchical rule system, where the order in which rules appears indicates precedence (which is the case for Norton Internet Security, for instance) then if you have specific rules enabling your web browser (which is the case in NIS) then these rules must be placed above that. Otherwise, the firewall will encounter the rule permitting your browser to use HTML before it encounters one of these block-rules and the block rule won't have any effect.

 

In addition, Norton Internet Security (the package I use) permits creation of direct ad-blocking rules, on a per-site basis. Below are a few of the ones I've set up:

Blocking ".swf" for a site prevents that site from displaying Flash files, which these sites are using for particularly obtrusive and obnoxious advertising. The file has to end in the string ".swf" because that's how the browser recognizes that it needs to invoke the Flash plug-in to run it. So if you block ".swf" then it means that site can't ever play a Flash file. Since the block is site-specific this has no effect on the ability of any other site, who are not abusing it, to use Flash.

The weird text I'm blocking for Geocities prevents that strange little pull-down window from appearing in the upper right corner of Geocities-hosted web sites. (The string may be different for Navigator, which I don't use. I think that the "ie" in the middle means Internet Explorer.)

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