Actually, it's more efficient than a heuristic >scanner. Your host still needs to do a host name lookup - this way it's >faster, since it gets a response from your own hosts.conf file.

No. The browser tries to do a host look up through the proxy (am i right here ?) so u could block ads even there. Also if the url is cut out from a page the browser doesn't need to do a host look up. cpu cycles saved !

I've found that I don't need to change the list that >I got from the site. I haven't seen an advt in all the months that >I've used it.

You wouldn't if you regularly visit just the same sites. I had tried one such list and presto! it wouldn't block the ads on indian sites. This one does, without any modification to anything.

as these are perfect for on-the-fly removal of ads. >On-the-fly -> too much processing required.

If just 0.0% of my processor is being used i don't really mind.

You have to install it don't you? It's easier to do cat newhosts >> /etc/hosts.conf

and well, u keep doing it for every new ad that doesn't get blocked, huh? Installation is one time job. I would aswell maintain such a list in my mozilla blocklist then. No hostlookup then !

there's overhead in starting a new process, and in >running that.

how much ? cpu usage for bfilter is nearly 0% as i see it right now and memory usage is 200kb, not bad eh ?

Another issue with host blocking. What if a file that you want is on your blocked host ?? other than the simple image that you were supposed to block ? host approach fails there. Image blocking would do some good if u were using mozilla.

There are some tradeoffs in each approach, for my purpose bfilter fits the bill.

C

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