How does eDexter work?
eDexter works by acting as a personal HTTP server. The process (slightly simplified for clarity) that it follows is like this: An ad server is blocked by the Hosts file and redirected to the 127.0.0.1 IP address of your computer. The browser still wants to put something in the ad’s place, so it asks 127.0.0.1 for the ad. eDexter sits on 127.0.0.1 as the personal web server and takes the request for the ad from the browser. eDexter then pretends the request was for one of its own gif files. The appropriate HTML headers are made by eDexter to make the browser think it will get the ad. The gif file is opened by eDexter, and then sent to the browser. (eDexter is telling the browser “here is the file you asked for.” The browser then puts the gif from eDexter where the ad would have been, and nothing is ever downloaded from the Internet. If for some reason there are no gif files in the eDexter directory, eDexter will send a “404 Lost Dog” error message to your browser.
