As time has gone on and online advertising has gotten more sophisticated, I found that the previous tools I was using to block obnoxious web advertising weren't up to the job.

I also found that the previous tools I was relying on were responsible for all the blue screens I was getting from Win2K and WinXP, even though they worked acceptably well under Win98SE. So I eventually chucked them and now I rely on two products: AdSubtract Pro and The Proxomitron. Both act as proxies, and I have my browsers set to use AdSubtract as a proxy, while it is set to use Proxomitron as a proxy. The latter does most of the work, which is particularly convenient since it's free.

This page is intended to share all the rules I've set up for The Proxomitron. I use version N45J. Filtration rules can be set up using interactive frames within the tool, but they're all stored as text in certain config files, and the easiest way to handle this is to provide segments of text which can be copied and pasted into those files.

There are two in particular, but unfortunately I can't tell you what the filenames are because they can be changed. The first is the configuration file, and the default filename for it is default.cfg in the installation directory for The Proxomitron.

It contains several sections, and I'll include my rules with those section headers. As of 20040318, here are my custom rules in THE CONFIGURATION FILE:

[HTTP headers]

In = FALSE
Out = TRUE
Key = "Referer: fool WaPo"
URL = "www.washingtonpost.com"
Replace = "http://news.google.com/"

[Patterns]

Name = "ABCNews deliverad"
Active = TRUE
URL = "abcnews.go.com"
Limit = 256
Match = "function deliverad"
Replace = "function delivernoads"

Name = "ABCNews getAd"
Active = TRUE
URL = "abcnews.go.com"
Limit = 256
Match = "getAd(*);"
Replace = "getNoAds();"

Name = "ABCNews setcookie"
Active = TRUE
URL = "abcnews.go.com"
Limit = 256
Match = "function setcookie"
Replace = "function setnocookies"

Name = "ABCNews InitAd"
Active = TRUE
URL = "abcnews.go.com"
Limit = 256
Match = "function InitAd"
Replace = "function InitNoAds"

Name = "ABCNews slider"
Active = TRUE
URL = "abcnews.go.com"
Limit = 256
Match = "function Slide"
Replace = "function Glide"

I have also added the following lines to the block file, whose default name is lists/URL Killfile.txt under The Proxomitron's installation directory. These can be copied to the end of the file; the position doesn't matter. As of 20040318, here are my custom rules in THE KILLFILE:

# ABC News cruft (some of which may also appear elsewhere)
abcnews.go.com/jscript/realone_detect.js
abcnews.go.com/jscript/main.js
abcnews.go.com/jscript/hbe-11up.js
abcnews.go.com/houseads
adimages.go.com/
[^.]+.abcnews.starwave.com/ad/
3ps.go.com/
log.go.com/
ds.serving-sys.com/Bursting
[^.]+.adsdk.com/
[^.]+.specificpop.com
specificpop.com

# Other news and general sites
[^.]+.forbes.com/scripts/dynamic.js
[^.]+.forbes.com/scripts/popit.js
[^.]+.forbes.com/scripts/partner_backlinks.js
[^.]+.forbes.com/scripts/newsletters_available.js
[^.]+.forbes.com/scripts/newsletters_guru_alert.js
[^.]+.forbes.com/scripts/triggerParams.js
[^.]+.forbes.com/scripts/stdLauncher.js
[^.]+.questionmarket.com
www.imdb.com/google/box
www.latimes.com/javascript/windoid.js
www.latimes.com/javascript/emailform.js
ads.indiatimes.com

# General advertising
[^.]+.googlesyndication.com/
[^.]+.strictlyhotlinking.com/
spinbox.[^.]+.com/
sa.windows.com/
xml.eshop.msn.com/
www.xml.eshop.msn.com/
ping.nnselect.com/
www.accesstrade.net
[^.]+.dtiserv.com/
[^.]+.dtiserv2.com/
hat.compuserve.com
yourfreedvds.com
hat.netscape.com
[^.]+.imrworldwide.com
[^.]+.eimg.net/partners/global/nav_bar.js
[^.]+.zedo.com
[^.]+.webtrendslive.com
[^.]+.dtiserv.com
[^.]+.bluestreak.com
[^.]+.sageanalyst.net
[^.]+.searchit.com
[^.]+.inet-traffic.com
[^.]+.sugoicounter.com*
[^.]+.trafficmp.com
[^.]+.unicast.com
[^.]+.insightfirst.com
[^.]+.sageanalyst.net
[^.]+.falkag.net/
[^.]+.[^.]+.falkag.net/
ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/detection/itmsCheck.js
rcm.amazon.com/
[^.]+.blogads.com
[^.]+.partner2profit.com
download.jword.jp
[^.]+.tok2.com/ban
65.119.30.151
wejscie.exe
stat.webmedia.pl
[^.]+.edge.ru4.com

I tend to link to ABCNews articles quite a lot, mostly because they carry both Reuters and AP feeds and because they don't remove old ones after a couple of weeks. However, ABC does do a lot of crap without these rules. Sometimes a page will pause during loading and hang indefinitely; sometimes there's a delay of upwards of 30 seconds before a page loads. In the first case it turns out it's trying to install a plugin, and in the second case it's mucking around with trying to download a RealMedia video of some kind. They also toss in popup advertising, pop-behind advertising, ads on top of the article, ads embedded in the middle of the article, and a whole lot of other ugly stuff. The combination of processing rules and block rules provided ab