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Bob Russell · 11-08-2004, 05:09 PM

There's an interesting article, No-Cost Ad Blocking that seems to have ways of using "PAC" files to keep from wasting bandwidth downloading from common servers on the internet. I couldn't really understand it, and when I tried to do it with IE, I got a bit lost and didn't get it working. As you'll see below, I got nervous when I was supposed to run a registry change from a reg file, and I wasn't sure if that meant I was supposed to import those registry settings or what. But it scared me off, and made me very unsure of whether any of this would work on Firefox at all anyway.

Here's the basic process as I understand it from the article, but maybe someone else can clarify and let us know if it's easy or hard, and if it works with FireFox.

1) Download free ad-blocking PAC files from www.sherylcanter.com/articles/pac-file.zip and unzip pac-file.zip

2) [Optional, and for Operal only?] Set up Blackhole Proxy
I didn't do this, thinking it was optional, and it may have been my downfall.

3) Configure your browser to use the PAC file:
-- Set it to use automatic configuration script of ad-block.pac
-- Use 127.0.0.1 (localhost) as the proxy server. Here's where maybe you need to have Blackhole Proxy set up, but I'm not sure.
-- For IE, you need to also uncheck "Include all sites that bypass the proxy server" and turn off the "auto proxy caching mechanism". The last part there seems to need a modification to the internet advance options which can be done with a registry file from http://www.schooner.com/~loverso/no-...roxy-cache.reg
That's basically where I completely gave up.

So... anyone ever do this or know how to lead us less-technical types through the process safely? Is it even worth the trouble?

11-08-2004, 05:09 PM	#1
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	Ad Blocking There's an interesting article, No-Cost Ad Blocking that seems to have ways of using "PAC" files to keep from wasting bandwidth downloading from common servers on the internet. I couldn't really understand it, and when I tried to do it with IE, I got a bit lost and didn't get it working. As you'll see below, I got nervous when I was supposed to run a registry change from a reg file, and I wasn't sure if that meant I was supposed to import those registry settings or what. But it scared me off, and made me very unsure of whether any of this would work on Firefox at all anyway. Here's the basic process as I understand it from the article, but maybe someone else can clarify and let us know if it's easy or hard, and if it works with FireFox. 1) Download free ad-blocking PAC files from www.sherylcanter.com/articles/pac-file.zip and unzip pac-file.zip 2) [Optional, and for Operal only?] Set up Blackhole Proxy I didn't do this, thinking it was optional, and it may have been my downfall. 3) Configure your browser to use the PAC file: -- Set it to use automatic configuration script of ad-block.pac -- Use 127.0.0.1 (localhost) as the proxy server. Here's where maybe you need to have Blackhole Proxy set up, but I'm not sure. -- For IE, you need to also uncheck "Include all sites that bypass the proxy server" and turn off the "auto proxy caching mechanism". The last part there seems to need a modification to the internet advance options which can be done with a registry file from http://www.schooner.com/~loverso/no-...roxy-cache.reg That's basically where I completely gave up. So... anyone ever do this or know how to lead us less-technical types through the process safely? Is it even worth the trouble?