How to stop Safari advertising (phishing) files from returning.

Cookies are left by websites and trackers on those websites to follow your activity on the Internet.

It's absolutely horrifying of the level of privacy invasion that's occurring, it's worst on iOS devices because they offer no way to install software to stop it.

A "Do not Track" request can be made, but tracking companies etc., are ignoring it.

If you don't want to be tracked, you can take matters into your own hands.

Install the free Firefox web browser.

Install the free Ad Block Plus add-on for Firefox and set up with Easy list autoupdating (automatic now)

Install the free Ghostery add-on and enable everything to block cookies, trackers and web bugs and also enable delete Flash and Silverlight cookies upon quit.

Install the free Click&Clean, it will clean Firefox upon exit, check the preferences.

Install the free HTTPSEverywhere add-on from the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Install the free TrackMeNot add-on, this sends (clean) random search data to search engines as they record all that too.

Install the free Web of Trust,, this is a community warning system of bad or malicious sites.

Install the free NoScript add-on and then Tools > Customize and drag the Temp Allow All button to the toolbar, this will prevent all scripts (Javascript, Java, Flash, etc) from running unless you click the button (and trust the site). This way they can't use scripts maliciously (Javascipt for History Sniffing, popup windows etc) exploits or "abilites" or coookies in Java, Flash and Silverlight, to track you or attack your machine. If you trust the site you can while list it or temp allow it.

Disable Java in your browsers perferences it's nearly always insecure, Disable Flash and only use it on sites you trust.

Disable any other browser plug-ins that are not used that much, the object is to have minimal things running as you surf the net.

If your into adult content like 10% of Internet traffic is, then learn to use a virtual machine and a operating system in that. This way once your finished you can "rollback" to a previous uninfected version that you only update, never use in a manner that it can become infected.

Windows in BootCamp or Virtual Machine?

If you want to take things a step further you can install hosts file additon that will block your computer from accessing sites.

1: Download and install the free TextWrangler from BareBones Software

(10.8 users may need to System Preferences > Security > General > Download to "Anywhere" to accept software from the web. The AppStore version if it exists may not be there, or a dumbed down version or outdated/insecure as Apple takes 4-8 weeks to approve software via AppStore)

2: Open this page in a browser window and select all and copy to the clipboard.

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

(it's from this site here, http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm but the instructions are for Windows)

3: Open TextEdit and new file, paste from the clipboard.

4: Delete the lines

127.0.0.1 localhost

::1 localhost #[IPv6]

5: Use The Find and Replace, replace all instances of 127.0.0.1 with 0.0.0.0 and click apply to all.

6: Select all and copy the result to the clipboard.

7: Open TextWrangler and open File by Name:

/etc/hosts

8: DO NOT TOUCH what you see there, arrow down the bottom, add a few returns and paste from the clipboard.

9: Save using your Admin name and password.

10: Repeat the same every few months to update the list.

11: If you wish to block custom sites, then

0.0.0.0 www.somesitehere.com

12: If you wish to have the computer ignore a line then add the "#" sign in front of the line

#0.0.0.0 www.somesitehere.com

It might be some sites may require connections to these tracking servers when you go to purchase something, I only have see it occur once with TicketMaster and never again.

A hosts file addition is required for each operating system, so the one in a virtual machine is going to need it's own, it can't use the OS X one.