I have used HostsMan
http://www.abelhadigital.com/ for years. It comes bundled with HostsServer. ( From the help section: HostsServer is a freeware local HTTP Server designed to speed up surfing when a custom hosts file is in use.)
The most recent release also features Optimize which essentially (I believe) organises the hosts file entries into strings.
The kicker with a Hosts file, is that a large file will take longer to process with each access. The Optimize tool is a solution to that problem.
Another point with a hosts file, is that it block whole domains only, which helps with security issues, not individual ads (blocking) included within a domain/wesite. But I find that 90% of the ads out there originate from separate ad servers which can be blocked.
The reason I use a hosts file solution to blocking, is precisely because it acts on all network accesses no matter which browser I use. That way, I do not have to keep multiple ad blockers updated for each browser. (Although I use K-Meleon for 99% of my browsing, occassionally I have to resort to I.E. for some sites, and sometimes I play with QTWeb.)
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2010 03:42PM by Davep.