As a refresher, the way this works is by overriding the internet's
DNS, we cause the listed adservers to resolve to our own machine.
Due to this, when our web browser goes to download the ad, it can't
find it because our machine is not serving the ad. Result, no ad is
displayed.
Problem:
Some of your apps spend a few seconds trying to access the ad before
timing out. You want to eliminate this delay.
Solution:
Install a webserver at the address listed. Deny all requests to this
server. This will cause your browser's request to be instantly
rejected, rather than timing out, and thus will eliminate the delay.
Notes:
Unless you already have a webserver installed, you don't really want
to install one, particularly if you have Windows. The recommended
strategy is to use another machine, for example a machine sitting in
your cupboard running FreeBSD and Apache. Then, all you do is change
your HOSTS file to point at this server, and install a virtual host
into Apache like this:
1. vi /usr/local/etc/apache/httpd.conf
2. paste at the end:
3. save and exit
4. /usr/local/sbin/apachectl restart
Note this will create a server on port 80, if you already have a site
on port 80, you cannot use this fix with this server (as, AFAIK, a
port number cannot be entered in the HOSTS file). Alternatively,
move your existing site to a new port. You must use port 80 for this
blocking technique, as that is the port your webserver tries to
access to download the ad. If port 80 is not available you will get
timeouts. If you already have a site on port 80 and you install this
fix without changing the port, then your logs will fill with ad-
related traffic.
Yes, a side-benefit of this is that you can see the requests your
browser was making to the adservers by reading your webserver's
logfile. I imagine this technique could be used to capture any
request from any software.
