Return of the Ads.

[Blitzzoshi]

So, yeah. That stuff at the top header and inbetween posts. They're back again. While my AdBlock Plus gets rid of them, there's still nasty empty cell space between the first post and second. From what I hear, we got rid of that stuff years ago, so, what? Are we going to remove them again? Such obtrusiveness is not fit for an internet community.

[teh yoshi]

I have the script to remove them again, but it's been decided that we're not going to do so since we may freak out the ProBoards team after contacting their support, telling us it's a no go (despite nothing being mentioned in their Terms of Service).

So yeah... lame ads once again. I really want to rip it right off here, but I guess there's no other choice at the moment. Alternatives include using Firefox with AdBlock extensions or that PinkFloydYoshi will post instructions about that shortly.

EDIT: By the way, you have a pretty avatar going on there. I really like your cute bunny ears, Blitzz. You should wear them more often!

[red.yoshi]

ewww, if its not in their terms of service then its not in their terms of service! all they want is our money D=. they weren't planning the sneak attack of html ninjas!

[PinkFloydYoshi]

It's annoying. Individual users should have the ability to turn off ads they don't want to see in their profiles. Yeah, it means you don't get as much from the ads because there's quite a few that don't want to see them, but you aren't invading people's property with these advertisements. It's my computer, I should be the one to decide if an ad should be allowed to invade my screen, not some service I happen to use, unless I'm not registered to it.

I have at least 3 different mechanisms that shred ads from pages as I surf and destroys ads being sent to AIM and MSN, but the one that is straightforward enough to work in any software you have on your machine, not just FireFox (Although if you're not using FireFox or Opera, you deserve to be invaded by ads because you aren't doing everything to ensure your computer is not affected by todays trojans, spyware and such, and don't say IE is good enough, because it isn't and you know it.) is the hosts file. This is a file derived from the UNIX era that is used to translate IPs into hostnames, before the machine sends out the name to DNS servers for resolution. If it's not found in the hosts file, it calls out to the DNS servers for resolution instead. Stored in:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

It has a simple syntax, just like this:

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

127.0.0.1 localhost

Look at that final line though.

127.0.0.1 localhost

This line tells any application that localhost resolves to 127.0.0.1, which is your local computers 'loopback' interface. The loopback device is an address your computer uses to talk to itself without broadcasting all it's chatter all over the network. Much like talking to a parent at home. If for some reason you want to get to a server on your computer from the same machine, such as an Unreal Tournament configuration interface, you'd goto in your browser. Because the hosts file has an entry for localhost in it, the browser will look at the IP next to it, and use it to talk to the server.

See how it works now? Now, lets get rid of those ads. The best thing about this file is that you do not have to restart. Don't remove the entry for localhost as it's important and certain Windows LEVEL UP ! ! services such as the RPC service rely on it.

Now you understand how the file works, lets add some sites that host ads. Add these just below the "127.0.0.1 localhost" entry.

127.0.0.1 banners.4d5.net
127.0.0.1 rad.msn.com
127.0.0.1 4d5.net
127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 red.as-us.falkag.net
127.0.0.1 a.as-us.falkag.net
127.0.0.1 img-cdn.mediaplex.com
127.0.0.1 altfarm.mediaplex.com

This will get rid of most ads in MSN, all ads on any board on Proboards, all ads on any board on InvisionFree, most ads on deviantArt (if you own a free account) and many more on other sites. Whats more, this is a method which affects only your computer, and there is nothing any service can do (Under freedom of speech) to stop you from using this because your computer is your property, and nobody but you has control over what it does. This won't get rid of them all as this is only a working example. Each ad you get, add the subdomain.domain.tld address into your hosts file and you won't get them again.

[Blitzzoshi]

I can block the ad images, that's fine and good. But what about the empty space between posts? Is there a way to nuke those too? I have a variety of "zap" bookmarklets that use Javascript to remove web annoyances such as scrolling marquees, page redirects, and mystery meat navigation. Would it be possible to make one remove the empty cell through Java?

[PinkFloydYoshi]

The table containing the ad does not have an id or class, and proboards interprets the ad space as another post, so, if you used display: none; in the windowbg2 class, you'd get rid of a share of posts on the page. The only way to do it would be to have it search the page each time you click a link on the board for that table code, and have it shred it out each time. It'd have to be exact also, else it'd chop the entire table used for posts.