If you're very annoyed by Gravatar (a privacy concern) as I am constantly loading on forums and websites you visit all over the web causing them to load very slow here's how to completely block it.
Mozilla Firefox:
Since Firefox doesn’t fully honor the blocking in ad blocking extensions or the Windows HOSTS file (how I don’t know) you’ll have to enable this in Firefox to make it block Gravatar:
Go into: Tools > Options > Privacy > Change Block List > and select: Disconnect.me strict protection
Chrome/Chromium Browsers:
As long as you use an ad blocker from what I’ve seen it will honor what you wish to block, unlike Firefox.
Regardless of whatever web browser you use or adblocking extension input the following websites to block:
In the Windows HOSTS file block the same sites:
It might look like this in your HOSTS file, depending upon your configuration:
127.0.0.1 en.gravatar.com
127.0.0.1 gravatar.com
127.0.0.1 secure.gravatar.com
127.0.0.1 www.gravatar.com
Or it might look like this in your HOSTS file, depending upon your configuration:
0.0.0.0 en.gravatar.com
0.0.0.0 gravatar.com
0.0.0.0 secure.gravatar.com
0.0.0.0 www.gravatar.com
To edit the HOSTS file on a system where editing is blocked by Windows (probably anything newer than Windows XP) right click a Notepad shortcut and: Run as administrator, then you should be able to edit the HOSTS file without Windows restricting it. Or use a freeware tool like HostsXpert (which will have a UAC prompt) to edit it.