Alternative to 0.0.0.0 in hosts?

[Grok]

I have a couple hundred (at least) entries in my hosts file.  Dozens from hitbox.com sites for hit tracking from espn, microsoft, vmware, etc.

Anyone know a quick and free way to resolve all subdomains of a domain to 0.0.0.0?  I'd like to do this but it doesn't have any effect:

# hosts entries
0.0.0.0      *.hitbox.com

0.0.0.0      *.adserver.com

# end of file

[iago]

I use the "adblock" extension for firefox, which supports wildcard blocks.  It doesn't affect spyware, of course, but it's a good start for blocking ads.  There's a second extension you can get that automatically updates the adblock list with a recommended list.  Since I started using that, I haven't seen a single ad, so I'm pretty impressed. 

Another option, which is system-wide is to run your own DNS server and keep up with the DNS-blackhole list, which is an actively maintained list of Spyware/Adware/Worm addresses (plus instructions on how to use it with bind or windows).  That'll block it straight from the DNS server. 

[Grok]

I like the DNS blackhole list.  Time to run my own DNS and install that.
Thanks iago, great idea.

[iago]

You're welcome. 

Let me know how well this works, I was thinking of installing bind but never got around to it. 

[Trance]

Yeah, I'd like to know how this goes too. I tried to send a lot of those sites into a blackhole with my hosts file but of course that didn't work =/

[iago]

You'd have to convert the list into a format useable by hosts.  I'm not sure how you'd do that on Windows, but a quick awk script would work in Linux

[Kp]

A quick awk script would work on Windows too, once you download a Windows port of awk.   You might be able to get one from the GNUwin32, UnixUtils, or Cygwin projects.