Guide | How To Free System-wide Adblocking without Adguard

[frogboy]

Steps:
1/ Add this hosts file to your "C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc" by copy & paste
https://adaway.org/hosts.txt
You can change 127.0.0.1 -> 0.0.0.0 to increase the speed
2/ install uBlock Origin for your browsers
3/ Open this website, choose these recommended filters to your uBlock Origin besides the default ones


Some filters you can also add but with caution. They may break something or they are just a bit overkill or decrease browsing speed:


Filters that are NOT RECOMMENDED:


Pros:
- Free system-wide adblock without using adguard, adfender
- The hosts file (14kb) is able to block most common adservers without slowing down your internet and you don't have to disable "DNS client" service to make them work like other big hosts file
- Slighty improve browsing security due to some extra malware filters
- Works great alongside Avira browser safety and Bitdefender Trafficlight
- Doesn't cause problems as some users reported due to the extensive filters by Adguard
- Doesn't track your information
- It's fast
- It doesn't scan your HTTPS like Adguard does

Cons:
- It obviously cannot block all ads especially non-english ads. Can be solved by manually adding a few ad domains into the hosts file. More domains mean slower browsing speed

Hope this help

Thanks for the uBlock filter lists a good selection right there. A couple there i had missed.

 

[Evjl's Rain]

add this to ublock origin block list. It helps to block ransomwares but may have a medium risk of false positives

https://ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch/downloads/RW_IPBL.txt

 

[Huchim]

Hello, thanks for the info, I use the Steven Black hosts on one of my pc with their python code, I have deleted some of their sources, added some domains on their whitelists, and the result is a hosts with ~90 kb and combined with task sheduler in windows it auto-updates and is replaced automatically.

I notice the improvement of speed on firefox and I just have some filters on ublock, I mainly use ublock for the pop-ups

 

[enaph]

If you use Comodo Firewall, you can add hosts lists (hosts format) in web protection.
If I remember correctly, in place of ads, you will see Comodo block message. Dont know hows it with Comodo V10?
And guess it works with Comodo V10.

And here is the guide: [How-To] Block Malicious Websites or Ads with Comodo v7 & v8 Web Filter

 

[Ink]

Does this method block Ads from Windows Store and UWP Apps? Can anyone confirm?

 

[Evjl's Rain]

yes, it does, in some extent

After

 

[Evjl's Rain]

but for a better adblocking result especially in-app ads, you should replace the hosts I recommended by a more extensive one, for example, MVPS hosts
my hosts is from adaway, it only blocks most common ad servers
mobile ads sometimes use uncommon ad servers so it may not block them

 

[Wave]

Does this method block Ads from Windows Store and UWP Apps? Can anyone confirm?

It'll block connections to the entries added to the Hosts file system-wide for any running programs, so Windows Store/UWP apps will be eligible too!

 

[Wave]

but for a better adblocking result especially in-app ads, you should replace the hosts I recommended by a more extensive one, for example, MVPS hosts
my hosts is from adaway, it only blocks most common ad servers
mobile ads sometimes use uncommon ad servers so it may not block them

For what it's worth I would just suggest using a browser extension like uBlock, that way you get a ton of blocked host entries, pop-up blocking and also generic advertisement removal (not entirely based on a DB but by searching and hiding the elements which is good for blocking new advertisement host providers).

However for system-wide, of course the Hosts is beneficial!

 

[j2yazmnzn]

great guide.

 

[Tadas247]

Thanks for this guide.

 

[Handsome Recluse]

but for a better adblocking result especially in-app ads, you should replace the hosts I recommended by a more extensive one, for example, MVPS hosts
my hosts is from adaway, it only blocks most common ad servers
mobile ads sometimes use uncommon ad servers so it may not block them

Peter Lowe's is smaller and more professional. I only see MVPS blocking the weird ads like Get Rid of Fat in 2 weeks. I doubt apps will put that in them.

 

[Evjl's Rain]

Peter Lowe's is smaller and more professional. I only see MVPS blocking the weird ads like Get Rid of Fat in 2 weeks. I doubt apps will put that in them.

peter lowe doesn't block

pagead2.googlesyndication.com
pagead2.googleadservices.com

so when we use it alone, it's gonna miss so many ads because many ads come from those domains. I consider this unacceptable. When I used it solely, it was almost closed to useless
these are 2 examples. Peter lowe misses a lot of more common domains while adaway small hosts contain all of the common ones

 

[Natural_Causes]

Hello.

I'm still new to this sort of thing, and this is probably a stupid question, but how do I put it in the "C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc" folder?

Thanks.

 

[Evjl's Rain]

Hello.

I'm still new to this sort of thing, and this is probably a stupid question, but how do I put it in the "C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc" folder?

Thanks.

you just have to download the file, rename it to "hosts" (remove the extension txt), copy it to the etc folder. That's it

if you cannot copy the file, you have to right-click the original hosts file in the etc folder -> properties -> untick read-only -> OK
copy and replace the hosts file

 

[Deleted member 178]

In the old days using the host file hampered the speed because for every connection requests , the browser had to read the huge host file. Now , i don't know if it is still the cae.

 

[Evjl's Rain]

In the old days using the host file hampered the speed because for every connection requests , the browser had to read the huge host file. Now , i don't know if it is still the cae.

I don't think it's a problem as when we use a huge hosts file
this adaway hosts is only 13.4Kb. it's so small but effective enough against popular adservers. It's still better than peter lowe's hosts file which is ~61Kb but cannot block these popular adservers

I have been using it for a year but I haven't seen any change in terms of speed with or without this hosts file

 

[lab34]

If the host file must be edited, it's necessary to launch notepad in Admin mode. (untick read only is not sufficient)
But sometimes, some security products protect the host file (avira for example), so you have to disabling the protection before.

 

[Deletedmessiah]

There is a software called hostsman which can do this. But if you use it, be sure to NOT use any of hphosts(screws up the internet like you mentioned) and chameleon(unnecessary) hosts.