Yahoo, Blockers & Banners

For those following along at home, the problem we stumbled onto yesterday (qv) is that Yahoo uses the same redirect server to serve both its content and its ads.

This means that those who use Host files to block unwanted ads on commerical websites also lose the ability to benefit from Yahoo’s editorial content. Or does it?

Editing your Host file

To continue to block ads without losing the ability to use Yahoo’s editorial sections, open your Hosts file and delete this line for Mac:

rd.yahoo.com         CNAME 127.0.0.1

... or this one for the PC:

127.0.0.1         rd.yahoo.com

Save the file, restart your computer, and surf on. (Hat tips: ecd, Jake Sutton, and Dean Allen.)

Security zones

In MSIE, you can disable ads without resorting to a Hosts file. In theory so doing should remove popunder ads and other nuisances without disabling content. (Hat tip: Dave Polaschek.) Here’s how to do it:

IE5.1/Mac: Open the Security Zones panel in your Browser Preferences, enter the Restricted sites zone from the dropdown menu, click Add Sites, and type http://*.yahoo.com. Voila.

IE5/Win: Choose Internet Options and select Security. Then select Restricted Sites. Then select Sites. Type the URL in the dialog labeled “Add this Web site to the zone,” and click OK.