But, seriously how is site blocking being implemented? I was quite surprised to learn Google was somehow involved. I have a direct bookmarked link to a hypothetical message board. It should do a DNS (from my Internet provider) look up and go directly to the site. Why is Google (a search engine) even in this loop? It’s disturbing to think Google is monitoring every link I click.
Has a malware/block flag been added to DNS servers? How are browsers checking to see if a site is on the [DEL]Shit [/DEL]blocked list? Is Google being polled every time I click a bookmarked link?
Google creates a list and offers the list as a service to any browser that wants to subscribe to the list. Just like many organizations (such as SpamCop) create mail domain blacklists and makes them available to any SMTP server that wants to subscribe to the list.
Browsers that use this service are Chrome and Firefox. I don’t know what other browsers use it. Was Safari one of them? We’ve determined this week that IE does not use the Google lists but they do use a list.
Your browser gets a copy of the list. Any time you visit a site, your browser checks to see if the domaon is on the list. If it is, you get the warnings you’ve been seeing when visiting this site lately. If not, nothing. The physical list is grabbed by your browser periodically, and of course also updated periodically by Google (and when Google does something periodically, it’s fast).
The same thing happens with SMTP server blacklist services. You just don’t realize because you don’t run an SMTP server.
Your ISP and their DNS (or your DNS of choice) is not involved. Just your browser.
Google does supply warnings about domains on their search results. So you can search Google and come up with warnings alongside links/hits for the SDMB. This is Google accessing their own lists, and has nothing to do with your browser or computer or ISP.
The blocking is at the browser level. Most browsers have chosen to use a blacklist of some form or another. Microsoft compiles their own blacklist, while pretty much everyone else chooses to use Google’s.
I used to do trace routes to see the path to sites. It reached a point where tracert reported many addresses that are unnamed ip numbers. I have no idea how to find out whos running those servers or why they are in the loop. It might be better not knowing.
Is this one of those message boards that is well known for accepting advertising from questionable sources, or are we talking about something more above-board and honest?
Is there a user-settable setting in my browser (Firefox, older version) where I can turn this on or off? For a while I was getting that RSOD (Red Screen Of Death) on every SDMB page I loaded.
Is there a way I can create my own private blacklist?
Is there a way I can create my own private whitelist?
Okay, thanks. Still, would be nice if I could make my own custom blacklist or whitelist.
Firefox does allow this for images. It’s possible to build a list of sites from which Firefox will not display images. In my older version, just right-click on any image, and there’s an option to block images from the same site. In a newer version I have, you have to dig a little deeper: Right-click on image, then click on View Image Info (or something like that), and I think there’s a check-box there.
I wish Firefox had a similar option for ALL things that any web site may load from any other web site. In other words, I wish one could selectively block all <href> links just like blocking <img> links.
If you’re at least a bit technically literate you should investigate http://www.privoxy.org/ . It’s a proxy server you can install which provides very granular control over what gets blocked where. I run it with fairly strong settings in general and only loosen them a bit for sites I really want to use and which have problems with the very locked down defaults.
On the thankfully rare occasions I use somebody else’s PC I can’t even recognize their browsing experience. I can hardly see the page content through all the distracting blinking ads & crap. None of that BS intrudes on my PC.
You can control images, cookies, script etc. all separately. and all on a per-site basis. Take control of what your browser is tattling to the Powers of Evil (r) ™.
