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I am interested to know if the hosts file does do a good job in blocking the unwanted parasites or if it simply welcomes more **** onto the computer.
Thanks.
Hi cisinfotech, you probably know this but for others reading.
The Hosts file can be both a very good security measure and a very bad one.
The one in your link (mvps) is safe and does a very good job. The way the safe ones work is by directing known malware sites to your computer when looking up a website.
eg
127.0.0.1 www ispreadworms com
Your OS will look at the hosts file first for the IP address of www ispreadworms com, the OS won't ask your ISP if it finds an entry. In the above example this is good 127.0.0.1 is your computer and (hopefully) you're not I Spread Worms so your browser will normally return an error rather than feeding a malware website.
In the above case your OS will look at 192.168.1.7 for google.com and this could be ispreadworms.com (this IP is also a private address and only used here as an example). Long story short, yes if you trust the hosts file then make the changes but protect that file from unauthorised changes.
Last edited by wildfire; 18th June 2009 at 01:00.
Reason: Removing urls
For those using the MVP HOSTS file, have you noticed that it affects the functioning of the BACK button in IE?
I use it in spite of that but it is a bit of a bother to have to click more than once since at times the first click is directed to 127.0.0.1 (and no action is taken) for some odd reason.
Now I have read that FAQ I realise that I do experience the same phenomenon, but had it 'sussed' with the realisation that many ads on a web page simply display 'Internet Explorer cannot display the page' - i.e. they were blocked and a look at the dropdown list by the Forward/Back buttons showed several ad-doubleclick's.
The benefits of not seeing ads far outweighs the slight hassle with the back button
) you're not I Spread Worms so your browser will normally return an error rather than feeding a malware website.
