[ILUG-BOM]great downloader and ad filter for GNU/Linux

[linuxdev]

>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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