T&L Publications

anyone know how to block MSN.com? I'm sick of it taking control of my computer.. can't do anything until it loads completely, it will not allow me to type in or go to a favorite.. tired of this microsoft take over.

Do you want to "block" it, or just remove it as your default home page? If it's the latter, then open Tools, Internet Options, and change the home page on the General tab.

Not knowing your setup, this may or may not help. I put all sites I don't like in my router's firewall. Blocks them nicely, without bogging down the computer.

I have several computers on the router & hubs, on a cable modem. I use it to conviniently block any advertising site (& dataminers, etc.) that serves the adds that jiggle, flash & move from all computers with one whack.

There are something like 10-20 in there- I haven't seen a new one in a long time. Just the ocasional "Site blocked by Netgear" box in place of an offensive ad.

Other possibilites?:

Is the MSN site set as the home page in your browser?
You should be able to change the homepage setting in your browser.
If you have a hijack in IE, switch to Firefox.

nope, not my homepage thank the lord.. but, I use hotmail for my email, and unfortunately, when you sign out, it goes to MSN.com and does not stop until it gets there.. period.. no way to get it to go anywhere else, more of MS dictatorship.. guess I could get rid of hotmail, but my email address is on my cards and everyone uses it.. so, if I could re-route or block MSN..

frhrwa wrote:nope, not my homepage thank the lord.. but, I use hotmail for my email, and unfortunately, when you sign out, it goes to MSN.com and does not stop until it gets there.. period.. no way to get it to go anywhere else, more of MS dictatorship.. guess I could get rid of hotmail, but my email address is on my cards and everyone uses it.. so, if I could re-route or block MSN..

You can completely block access to MSN.COM on your local machine by placing an entry for MSN in your hosts file and then giving it your "local host" as an address. On windows XP, your hosts file is located here:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

Add the following line to end of the file:

127.0.0.1 msn.com

Remember, this will COMPLETELY block you machine from visiting MSN.COM since it will now believe that MSN.COM is located on your local machine.

This is really a brute-force hack for getting rid of MSN.COM, there are probably more elegant ways..

Vern

Why don't you just close the hotmail page instead of signing out?

What Vern said is good too. Here is a some more sites to add:

127.0.0.1 cdn.fastclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.bannerconnect.net
127.0.0.1 imageads.canoe.ca
127.0.0.1 ads5.canoe.ca
127.0.0.1 adbrite.com
127.0.0.1 ads1.msn.com
127.0.0.1 rad.live.com
127.0.0.1 doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 g.msn.ca
127.0.0.1 doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ads1.msn.com
127.0.0.1 rad.msn.com
127.0.0.1 advertising.com
127.0.0.1 digitaltrends.com
127.0.0.1 webmessenger.msn.com
127.0.0.1 messenger.hotmail.com
127.0.0.1 messenger.live.com
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 atdmt.com
127.0.0.1 spe.atdmt.com

This will stop all the advertisements on all MSN sites (including hotmail) from showing up. Makes reading hotmail MUCH better! You even get more screen back.

Craig wrote: 127.0.0.1 doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 g.msn.ca
127.0.0.1 doubleclick.net

Double doubleclick?

Craig wrote: 127.0.0.1 ads1.msn.com
127.0.0.1 rad.live.com
127.0.0.1 doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 g.msn.ca
127.0.0.1 doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ads1.msn.com

Double ads1 too?

couponbar.com is another one to block.

If you want to have a real nice filter you can always use OpenDNS. OpenDNS is a DNS server farm available for free. You set you router's DNS entries to those at OpenDNS instead of your ISP.

If you setup your own account at OpenDNS (again FREE) you can block whatever sites or content you desire. If you have kids and want to filter adult content, games, chat sites etc. they have the filters in place already. If you want to block individual sites such as MSN.COM those can be added as well.

Here is the link:

http://www.OpenDNS.com

The beauty of this is you can filter EVERY computer on network right at your router. No software to install, just a simple configuration of your router and some choices at a web site. Want to reverse the blocks? Edit the settings on the OpenDNS account or go back to using your ISP's DNS servers.

I opened the dns and registered, changed the info in network settings like it said, now it wants me to add a network or shortcuts? now what? thanks..

Adding a network is basically just setting the IP for your account so OpenDNS knows what IP to use your settings with. Shortcuts allow you to set a phase, word or sentence to open a desired page with less typing or so it's easier to remember. You can store "goo" for example and tell OpenDNS to resolve to "google.com" when you type it in. Shortcuts are optional. You should checkout the filtering page and set what if anything you want to block. If you select the custom option you'll have numerous choices of what to block.

thanks.. I set it up, now to sse how it all works.. Learn something new everyday...

Craig wrote:What Vern said is good too. Here is a some more sites to add:

Instead of maintaining a complete list of all the ad sites, let "mike" do it for you..

http://everythingisnt.com/hosts.html



Vern

thanks Vern.. it works great..