Hosts file causing more problems than it solves

[videobruce]

tried this once before and stopped using it, partly because of issues with many web sites.
Well, I'm tring it again and it gets rid of many ads on web pages, BUT;

1. It restricts some sites entirely (can't log into Excite Mail),
2. It blocks images that aren't ads (Toms' Hardware reviews, the proformance graphs)
3.It causes some pages to hang while waiting for ads to load.

Other than getting rid of it all together or trying to aquire a list of addresses to delete from the 45,000+ entry 'hosts' file, can anything else be done?

Win 2k running Opera V8.53
BTW, I checked Excite Mail on Mozilla and I can't sign in there either.

[Paul Komski]

What setup your hosts file with so many entries.

The hosts file (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file#Ad_filtering) works by avoiding DNS lookup for the entries in it. "Blocking" is done by mapping the relevant domain name to 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1 IP addresses.

Either do away with the hosts file (back it up first maybe) or unblock the "blocked domains" by removing the entries for those domains. Pull out the domain name for the images you want at Toms Harware Reviews from the domain name in its "src" value in the html code.

[videobruce]

I d/l'ed it from here;
http://www.hosts-file.net/downloads.html

The one I'm using now is this;
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

[Paul Komski]

Excite.com doesnt seem to be blocked in the mvps.org file so one wonders if you have javascript enabled and that you have logged in to the account in the last 90 days (free accounts are disabled if not used for that period).

Cant check-out Tom's Hardware without an actual link but are you sure it is the hosts file that is at the heart of your problem.

[videobruce]

I Excite issue appears to be something else. I rarely use it so it's not an issue.
It was the processor or MB reviews where some of the charts didn't show. Others did.

[Paul Komski]

Need an actual url to check what the problem might be.