> and send the most egregious advertisers to 127.0.0.1 via DNS lookup?

I've done this with my local HOST file and its only moderately effective. The problem is that 127.0.0.1 never replies and the timeout period causes the page load to stall.

If I knew how I'd redirect requests to a local IP running a webserver that replies 410-Gone, 202-Accepted, 200-OK (or whatever code necessary) to any and all requests so the requesting page moves on and doesn't stall. If I was even more talented I could set up a public webserver and share it with the world so we could all point to it and block these ad servers that are ruining the internet.

NB: I'm not opposed to ads but the marketers need to realize the WWW is not TV and stop forcing unwanted, irritating and obnoxious ads and auto-play videos.