host files

  • Thread starter Thread starter mestan
  • Start date Start date
The wording of the tool which allows you to examine the hosts file is not
well chosen, in my opinion.

There is one hosts file. It contains (potentially many) lines each of which
has an IP address and a named host.

If what you are seeing is many lines such as

127.0.0.1 badawfulnastystuff.com

these lines were placed there by another antispyware program as a way of
keeping you from reaching badawfulnastystuff.com.

One difficulty with this way of doing things is that viruses also use this
mechanism--to prevent you from reaching the antivirus vendors site, for
example. How can you be certain that there are not "good" sites in there
amongst the thousands of "bad" ones?

I prefer to keep the hosts file at it's default minimum, which consists of
some comment lines and a single active line: 127.0.0.1 localhost.

The hosts file is located in \windows\system32\drivers\etc\ in Windows XP,
it's name is hosts, with no suffix, and it can be edited using any plain
text editor, such as notepad.

Perhaps someone else will contribute the third-party app which is designed
for editing hosts files, and which can easily reset it to the default, as I
recall.
 
A one button reset to the default host would be something I'd love to see in
beta2 of Microsoft Antispyware. Unless it is already in their plan, I don't
think it will happen, but we'll see.

Thanks--I can never remember the name of the tool, and haven't kept a
reference to it myself.

--
 
Bill Sanderson said:
A one button reset to the default host would be something I'd love to
see in beta2 of Microsoft Antispyware. Unless it is already in their
plan, I don't think it will happen, but we'll see.

Thanks--I can never remember the name of the tool, and haven't kept a
reference to it myself.
Click to expand...

I keep a renamed copy of Hosts to rename back if something changes it
because I have some settings that are nor 127.0.0.1. I do my editing in
Notepad.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE
Please respond in Newsgroup. Do not send email
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Protect your PC
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/
 
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE brought next idea :
I keep a renamed copy of Hosts to rename back if something changes it because
I have some settings that are nor 127.0.0.1. I do my editing in Notepad.
Click to expand...

Well, for a newbie/normal user with no knowledge about how to save as
file and edit hosts file Hoster must be preferred. IMHO.

3rd partys are not dangerous ! ;)
 
plun said:
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE brought next idea :

Well, for a newbie/normal user with no knowledge about how to save as
file and edit hosts file Hoster must be preferred. IMHO.

3rd partys are not dangerous ! ;)
Click to expand...

I agree that they are not dangerous. The main reason I try to do things
without using third party programs is so that I can do it on someone else's
machine if I didn't bring it along. This is a policy I started back in DOS
days when I had forgotten how to do something while at a customer. It was
embarrassing to say "Let me go home and get a program."

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE
Please respond in Newsgroup. Do not send email
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Protect your PC
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/
 
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE formulated on onsdag :
I agree that they are not dangerous. The main reason I try to do things
without using third party programs is so that I can do it on someone else's
machine if I didn't bring it along. This is a policy I started back in DOS
days when I had forgotten how to do something while at a customer. It was
embarrassing to say "Let me go home and get a program."
Click to expand...

Hi

Well, I have used the same tactic but nowadays it´s nearly
impossible to handle this mess with spyware without good 3rd party
tools.

Ewido and CCleaner for emergency cleanings. After that it´s time for
MSAS, Adaware and maybe Hoster ;)
 
Thats a good idea. Most out there, of course, don't have any changes from
the defaults.

--
 
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