Thank you for extensive good advice. You should post this as its own article. Do you know of a way to paste a list of evil URLs into the Security settings all in one swoop? I'm also looking for a thorough list of the worst offenders.
"Do you know of a way to paste a list of evil URLs into the Security settings all in one swoop?"
No, not in one swoop. However, you can go to the following site to download then unzip and install 3d Clipboard after reading the readme file. Also, download the Visual Basic Runtime Files from the same site if you do not already have them otherwise the program will not work:
http://www.3dclipboard.com/ It allows multiple copies to the clipboard.....up to 25 copies. If you have a list of sites that you have saved in Notepad, for example, you can copy each site to the clipboard then see each entry in the listing by left-clicking the paper clip in the systray near the system clock.
Or if you don't have a list then you can visit each site that you want to block and copy to the clipboard which saves the last 25 copies. Then in IE click on Tools/Internet Options/Security Tab/Restricted Sites Icon/Sites Button/copy to the top text box the first copy from the 3d clipboard/click Add/repeat for each entry in the clipboard.
"I'm also looking for a thorough list of the worst offenders."
As for a list of known offender sites, I know of none except those listed in the Ad-Aware database or the Spyware Blaster database. However, I am sure that some list must exist somewhere on the internet but I have not seen it or heard about it.