This application is a small web server that returns a 404 http error to every request. It listens on the local loopback interface and should be used with a hosts file that redirects known ad servers to the localhost. It is pretty similar to eDexter or Homer which are available for Windows.
In theory it would be enough to use the hosts file only to filter out the ad servers, but then it takes quite some time to load a web page with ads because the browser tries to reach the ad servers that are redirected to localhost. If no one answers to these requests they time out after a while. This fake web server is supposed to speed up this part and replies instantly with 404 (page not found) error to make your browser happy.
I use this small server with a hosts file from Everythingisnt.com site that already contains a lot of known ad servers to speed up the browsing experience on my Internet Tablet. Web looks just so much better without all those ads! :) Sure, there is privoxy available, but this is smaller and maybe faster too. On the other hand fakeweb is not that feature full and it does not work with a proxy server.
Example hosts files to try:
Please go to the garage project page to download the .deb files.
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Note: You need to install both the fakeweb binary and a hosts file or modify your /etc/hosts file manually to suit your needs! |