On April 26, 2003, most "run-of-the-mill" adult domains, previously classified under the section "Adult Domains (Misc.)," were removed from the main IE-SPYAD and AGNIS block lists. The reasons for this action are several:
* Overly Large Block Lists
The IE-SPYAD and AGNIS block lists were becoming incredibly large (4800 +
domains at one point), and I became concerned that the size of these
block lists might begin affecting the performance of the applications
for which they were built. At least one program, AtGuard, is known to
fail when very large block lists are used. Removing the misc. adult
domains (about 930+ domains) gives the IE-SPYAD and AGNIS lists room
to grow.
* Questions of Value
The value of continuing to add these misc. adult domains was becoming
increasingly dubious. While "run-of-the-mill" adult sites can present
dangers to users, most of those dangers seem to take the form of spyware,
homepage hijackers, dialers, and aggressive advertising that are pulled
from other sources which are already covered in the main (non-adult)
sections of IE-SPYAD and AGNIS.
Moreover, the list of potential adult domains is virtually endless and
ever growing. Stephen Martin makes an "Adult" HOSTS file available from
his site (http://www.smartin-designs.com/). That file alone contains
about 31,000 unique adult domains. By contrast, at its peak the misc.
adult domains section in AGNIS and IE-SPYAD contained about 1300.
So why target those 1300 and not a different group of adult domains?
There is (and was) no good reason, save the fact that I just happened
to stumble upon them. But I could spend all day every day for months
on end collecting adult sites/domains and not exhaust the potential
supply. And the value of adding all those domains to IE-SPYAD and
AGNIS would still be questionable.
* Efficiency
It seemed much more efficient to target three particular types of adult
domains, rather than the whole lot of them:
1) Adult domains that are known purveyors of
spyware, homepage hijackers, and porn dialers.
These sites were (and are) already included in the main (non-adult)
sections of IE-SPYAD and AGNIS.
2) Adult networks & services
There is an entire marketing and advertising industry on the Internet
almost exclusively devoted to supplying adult sites with banner ads,
counters, affiliate programs, dialers, and link exchange programs.
(Adult sites also use the same standard counters and banner advertising
networks that non-adult sites do.) Domains that are devoted to marketing
and advertising for web sites on the "adult" Internet are now included
in the "Adult Networks/Services" section in IE-SPYAD and AGNIS.
3) Adult hosting sites
Again, there is an entire industry on the Internet devoted to supplying
adult web masters with hosting for the web sites and ventures, just as
there are hosting plans for non-adult sites. These adult hosting sites
are now included under the section "Adult Hosting" in IE-SPYAD and AGNIS.
Between the "Adult Networks/Services" and "Adult Hosting" sections, over 300
adult-related domains are targeted. Add to those the adult domains that are
included the main sections of IE-SPYAD and AGNIS, and the total easily goes
over 500. Targeting those domains should provide users plenty of protection
against rogue web sites on the Net without having to throw in potentially
thousands of other "run-of-the-mill" adult sites that do little more than
serve up porn.
It was never my intention to target porn sites for their content alone. Rather, I targeted porn sites in IE-SPYAD and AGNIS because they tend to use incredibly aggressive direct marketing tactics. By removing misc. adult sites and instead targeting adult networks, services, and hosting sites along with known "adult" sources of "crapware," IE-SPYAD and AGNIS can protect users in a more efficient manner.
I will not be making any further additions to that "Adult Domains (Misc)" list, which is now included as a separate file. I will continue to add sites and domains to the other "Adult" sections described above and which are included in the main IE-SPYAD and AGNIS block lists.
I know that some users of IE-SPYAD and AGNIS may not be entirely pleased with this decision to remove the misc. adult sites from those block lists. For those users, the old "Adult Domains (Misc)" section is now available as a separate file in the \ADULT sub-directory of the AGNIS or IE-SPYAD installation directory (i.e., as a sub-directory of wherever you happened to unpack the AGNIS or IE-SPYAD package that you downloaded).
The next section explains how to install those misc. adult domains, if you so choose.
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How to Use the Files in This Directory
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This \ADULT directory contains two files:
ADULT.REG: This file adds just over 930 "run-of-the-mill" adult sites
to the Internet Explorer Restricted sites zone. To use the
file, double-click on it to merge the contents into the
Registry. Note that this list of 930 adult sites is added
to your current Restricted sites list; it does not remove
or replace and sites or domains that are already in your
Restricted sites zone.
ADULT-UNINST.REG: This file removes from the Restricted sites zone the roughly
930 adult sites previously added the file ADULT.REG. To use
this "uninstaller," simply double-click on it to merge the
changes into the Registry. Note that this file uninstalls
ONLY the sites contained in ADULT.REG, and will not uninstall
any other sites or domains which you might have in the
Restricted sites zone.
You can either use ADULT.REG and ADULT-UNINST.REG manually by double-clicking on the files, or you can use the IE-SPYAD Install/Uninstall Utility (INSTALL.BAT) in the main directory.
ADULT.REG and ADULT-UNINST.REG can be used completely independently of the IE-ADS.REG and IE-ADS-UNINST.REG files that comprise the main part of IE-SPYAD. Thus, because this list of misc. adult sites will not be added to in the future, you need only merge ADULT.REG once. There is no need to uninstall this list of misc. adult sites and re-install it every time you update your main IE-SPYAD list. It will remain across installations and uninstallations of the main IE-SPYAD list of Restricted sites.
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Still More Porno Sites...
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If you're interested in blocking pornography and other offensive material (perhaps you have young children in the house), then I'd suggest looking into some other (more effective) method for doing so. While IE-SPYAD will put restrictions on the sites listed in the "Adult" section, it will NOT block potentially offensive images and text from most of those sites (unless the sites rely heavily on active content). And IE-SPYAD doesn't even pretend to include a comprehensive list of known porno sites on the Web. Compiling such a list is well beyond the scope of IE-SPYAD.
A Note On the "Adults" Section from Stephen Martin's HOSTS File:
Starting with the 7/29/02 version of his HOSTS file, Stephen Martin removed the "Adult" section and began offering a separate "Adult" HOSTS file. According to Stephen Martin:
This file only contains Adult sites. Someone graciously sent me
a huge list which now totals 42913 adult site entries. I didn't
verify any of them because it would take too much time. I moved
the Adult sites I had from their normal place in the hosts file
to this new file so they are no longer in any of the hosts
files. If you want to include them just download it here, Zipped
252kb it's too large to post as a text file so you just unzip it
and merge it to the hosts file.
You can download this separate package from Stephen Martin's site:
http://www.smartin-designs.com/
Be warned: this file is a large one. It contains almost 43,000 unique entries. You can use the free HOSTS file utility Hostess (http://accs-net.com/hostess/) to convert that "Adult" HOSTS file to a .REG file similar to IE-SPYAD. The resulting file contains almost 31,000 unique domains (by comparison, IE-SPYAD contains around 4000 unique domains).
For the time being I willl keep the "Adult" sections in IE-SPYAD "as is" -- I will not be merging those 31,000 entries into IE-SPYAD proper or making a .REG file version of Stephen Martin's "Adult" HOSTS file available on my web site.
If you wish to merge those 31,000 entries into your Restricted sites zone, you can download the ADULTS.ZIP from Stephen Martin's web site
http://www.smartin-designs.com/
...as well as Hostess from...
http://accs-net.com/hostess/
...and generate the .REG file yourself. Hostess makes the process very easy.
