Ask HN: Suggestions for a current /etc/hosts DNS blacklist?

[arh68]

I am looking for a simple UNIX solution to blocking connections to ad servers. I am trying to minimize useless bandwidth usage, among other things. I have used Adblock+, Ghostery etc before but I'm looking for a simple, /etc/hosts-based solution. Of course, keeping a blacklist up-to-date is a small challenge. I have found:

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/

https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

StevenBlack's repo looks most promising, as it combines various sources, but I was curious if any HNers had better suggestions. Do you use a /etc/hosts blacklist? When was the last time it was updated? How many hosts does it block?

[ttctciyf]

I've seen this mentioned in a few places: http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/

[MichaelCrawford]

I'm not concerned with ads, exactly, but with analytics. That is I'm completely cool to look at an ad, provided it doesn't look back at me.

   127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com
   127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com
   127.0.0.1 www.hosted-pixel.com

I've got some more I'll dig them up - they're on my other computer.