Tag: malware

Posted on

How to block ads and malware websites using /etc/hosts files in Ubuntu

Here’s an easy way to block annoying advertisement and malware sites using ‘/etc/hosts’ file.

First edit the /etc/hosts files using your favorite text editor :

sudo gedit /etc/hosts

Then, paste the list of ads/malware servers in the ‘hosts’ file. You can get the list from http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ or by searching through Google.

Close the file, and Save. The change will take effect immediately after that. One of the side-effect from this modfication is that your web surfing experience would be significantly faster because your browser does not have to wait for the annoying advertisement to load.

Posted on

Google Malware Warning Fucked up?

I don’t know when this thing happened exactly, but I noticed it around 10:57 pm MYT (GMT+8) when I was searching information for Yaesu VX8R handheld radio.

It seems somehow the Google Malware Warning fucked up and labels all the search result as “may harm your computer”. Funny thing is, Google labels its own website as potentially spreading malware.

Google Calendar site is spreading malware?
Google Terfakap

This incident has showed me how reliant to Google i’ve become, which made me wonder what would happen if suddenly somebody might take advantage of our dependency to Google, and do nasty things to us and to our data? By the way, Google already know what you do, who you are, and where you live.

Update: This event has been slashdotted, MAKE Magazine blog also covered the story.

Update 2: Google somehow have fixed the issue at 11:22 pm MYT (GMT +8). Let’s see what they would say about this strange phenomenon.

Update 3: Thanks to Manley, it seems Google has not fixed the issue, but rather disabled the Malware warning on its search result.

Final Update : Google issued a statement in their official blog as well as StopBadware.org