I just posted an idea in the users' forum on OpenDNS. They offer DNS-filtering, but they have no category for filtering banners. Just block doubleclick.net, overture.com and so on and you can surf the web without seeing any banners. Their business model is unfortunately based on advertising, on the 404 page you see when you use their DNS there is advertising served by overture.com. This is the change to their business model I just suggested on their forum:

"Yes, I would really appreciate a category for domains like doubleclick.net and the likes. I now use Privoxy software (a local proxy) and I can highly recommend it. Websurfing without banners is a great experience. But Privoxy is getting increasingly more user unfriendly, although technically superior.

If all banner and advertising sources are filtered by OpenDNS and only overture.com is not blocked (the revenue for OpenDNS), I could easily do that locally for that domain. I reconfigure my computer to only filter out overture.com banners and I am completely bannerfree.

Therefore, if OpenDNS decides to offer a category for this, I expect it to be only available for a fee. Which I would gladly pay, I can't stress that enough. It is the only reason why I just registered this afternoon, hunting for an alternative to Privoxy. I am looking for a service like Privoxy, but then something I can recommend to everybody I know without me installing and maintaining complicated local proxy software on their computers.

Actually, I should able to buy a service for a batch of IP-addresses, so I can also include the IP-adresses of friends and family who want to surf banner free. They ask me with an e-mail, I look up their IP-address in the header of their e-mail and I add them after I have instructed them to change their DNS. Once I get past, for example, 10, addresses, and want to add more, I either have to buy an extra bundle for another 10, or I have to delete some. Or I convince the most tech-savy friend in my list to get an account himself and start spreading the service to his friends and family. In that way OpenDNS also a viral marketing model for such a service:

One person starts using OpenDNS through a friend by passing on their IP-address(es). They wish this also for their friends and ask him to add them. This has a limit and he suggests to buy a personal account. Then that person is going to 'spread the word' in his group of friends until the limit is reached.

Companies can even give the service away as a price. They pay OpenDNS on their behalf. It is a price they can give online. They just show an instructional movie on how to manually change the DNS and meanwhile they see they add the IP-address to their list at OpenDNS. When they put an expiry date to each entry they can make their customer come back every week or month to a certain website.

Hey OpenDNS, how about that? I just invented a new business model for you! Including the fashionable viral marketing and super scalable. With clients paying real cash! All that on top of your current business model.

Enjoy. Don't wait with implementing it, I want to start using it yesterday already."
-- rrr, Mar 01 2008

Privoxy http://www.privoxy.org/
a local proxy to filter advertising out [rrr, Mar 01 2008]

OpenDNS http://www.opendns.com
the service that filters domainname requests coming from your IP-address according to your chosen filters [rrr, Mar 01 2008]

OpenDNS ideabank http://ideabank.ope...AdwareMalware_sites
my comment on the OpenDNS 'ideatank' [rrr, Mar 01 2008]

DNS/IP Tunneling Explained http://www.linuxvir...VS-IPTunneling.html
You wanted a basic explination of how tunneling works. [WcW, Mar 03 2008]

404 errors are generated on the level of HTTP; DNS providers should have nothing to do with them. I've seen ISPs pretend to "resolve" every hostname that doesn't resolve to something that advertises - but those are not ISPs I tend to end up using.

Why are you trying to change product B do what you need because of a flaw in product A? Wouldn't it be easier to fix product A directly?

I think changing their DNS server is already beyond the threshold for most users.
-- jutta, Mar 01 2008


UnaBubba, I am willing to pay for websites with original content. The fact that the majority of people of people is not and even like seem to like advertising should not affect me. If you talk to people with ad-driven websites they can explain to you that the percentage of visitors with ad-filtering is something between zero and one percent. No serious threat to their business.

In the same vain I am also willing to pay for the Halfbakery. So far I bought one t-shirt. If jutta opens a tipjar on tipit.to it might also help a little. I like those kind of initiatives.
-- rrr, Mar 01 2008


Jutta, how to fix product A? I would love to give little tips for the websites I visit, but usually there is no tipjar on it.

If ad-revenue dwindles it will be a strong incentive to come up with other kinds of revenue. Therefore I filter ads. Currently there is not a significant number of internet users filtering ads.

Instead of my local Privoxy-filter I prefer to filter ads centralised at DNS-level so other people can enjoy the same blacklist.

Indeed, changing a DNS manually is too difficult for most people. With the viral scheme I described it might reach a few percent of internet users, instead of staying under the radar.
-- rrr, Mar 01 2008


Indeed. Then http would simply be routed through the website that you are viewing through a "tunnel". Banner ads simply treat the reffer from the browser as a proxy and you would never be able to filter them out by DNS. This is already being implimented.
-- WcW, Mar 01 2008


To clarify: Reffer leaves host to bannerhost as it does currently but instead of telling you that the content for that html bracket is from a foreign host it is tunneled through the website you are browsing thus apearing to come from the same host. This slows traffic slightly but is already a functional way of posting banners. If DNS bans were widely implemented then all banner content would be proxied this way and the system would not work.
-- WcW, Mar 01 2008


Please don't give money (or attention, for that matter) to people who purport to accept donations in the name of the halfbakery website. The halfbakery does not ask for, or accept, donations, and I've taken the unusual step of removing a user-contributed link to one such service.
-- jutta, Mar 01 2008


WcW, do you have a source for this? Some page that describes this practise? By the time DNS bans for banners become widespread a few years of banner free surfing for some of us have passed. I would say that is worth it.
-- rrr, Mar 02 2008


See new link. Search for references to html tunneling as it is a well described technique. Used at first to steal updated content now to stop banner blocking. Guides are oriented to constucting virtual networking and covering your trail online but the same code can be used by websites to hide where content comes from, with a slight penalty in speed.
-- WcW, Mar 03 2008



random, halfbakery