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[icon type=”warning-sign”] I added an update to this post on 1/3/13 to give you another way around the issue.
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Here’s a simple how-to. Have you ever seen something like this blocking access to a website?
You can block these ads from interfering with you access to sites, but it will require a little bit of file editing.
For Mac:
1. Go to Terminal (Applications > Utilities).
2. Type or copy and paste:sudo nano /private/etc/hosts
3. Press the down arrow key until you are below the last record and paste:85.25.148.82 www.cpalead.com rapidactionprofits.com api.instantdollarz.com pop-over.powered-by.securewebsiteaccess.com
4. Press Enter, then Ctrl+o, then Ctrl+x.
5. You should return to the main Terminal window. Type or copy and paste:dscacheutil -flushcache
6. Revisit the page!
For Windows:
1. Open the file at C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts using NotePad.
2. Below all the other records, tab over once and paste:85.25.148.82
3. Then, tab again and paste:www.cpalead.com rapidactionprofits.com api.instantdollarz.com pop-over.powered-by.securewebsiteaccess.com
4. Save the file.
5. Clear your Internet files, cache, etc. (Tools > Internet Options > Browsing History > Delete… )
6. Revisit the page!
Update
Since writing this over two years ago, some of these ads have gotten a bit smarter and will prevent access to the content unless it successfully loads. If you have trouble with this, first, delete or comment out the line 85.25.148.82 www.cpalead.com ... in your hosts file, save, and run dscacheutil -flushcache again.
Now, perhaps the easiest way to handle these now is to get familiar with tools like Firebug and Inspect Element. Using just a bit of CSS, we can disable these on most pages with a little effort.
For instance: I right-clicked in the browser window and clicked ‘Inspect Element’ (use Firebug or something similar on a non-WebKit browser).
You can see in the image that two elements are blocking access to the page—I selected each and added display: none to each (they were set to display: block previously).
This way is a bit more involved, but you also have more flexibility if something unexpected happens (like smarter popup ads).