motd-adblock
What is it?
A simple program made for blocking ads that appear in the MoTD of any Source game (or any other game that also has Pinion, MOTDgd, Unikrn and VPPGamingNetwork appear elsewhere).
How does it work?
By editing the hosts file and injecting code into it that'll prevent your computer from reaching certain websites, such as http://motd.pinion.gg, resulting in no Ads popping up in the MOTD or in the background; Simply Redirecting said website to 127.0.0.1, being that the computer itself, resulting in a certain error in the MOTD (as Steam would report).
If I don't like the changes and want my hosts file to be back the way it was before, is there a file for that?
Of course! There's another file in each OS directory that named something of "reset hosts".
Which Operating Systems (OS for short) are currently supported?
Linux and Windows, currently!
Mac isn't supported yet due to the lack of having a Mac computer myself; but any gained support for Mac is very much appreciated!
Are there any special requirements for this?
None at all, besides requiring Administrator privileges to inject the code.
But why though?
why not?
Because with playing on community servers on TF2 often, I got really annoyed at how the Ads would suddenly pop-up with bringing up the MOTD, or that music/videos would start playing in the background while you're playing your game, only to irritate you more.
How can one contribute?
If a person found subdomains that's used for handling Ads and you want to join in and help out and block it, you can follow the shown example below, with adding a (sub)domain:
# Pinion.gg #
127.0.0.1 subdomain.pinion.gg
But if it's for a different domain/ad company that isn't listed in motd-adblock, then you can create a new sub-block and add the list of domains/subdomains like in the example below:
# [...] #
127.0.0.1 existingadblock.com
127.0.0.1 www.existingadblock.com
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
[...]
# <New Ad Company name here> #
127.0.0.1 adcompany.com
127.0.0.1 www.adcompany.com
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
127.0.0.1 subdomain1.adcompany.com
127.0.0.1 subdomain2.adcompany.com
127.0.0.1 subdomain3.adcompany.com
[...]
##################################
Source
A majority of the Adblocking List comes from here:
https://piniongg.blogspot.com/
Web Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20181226072623/https://piniongg.blogspot.com/