Updating your HOSTS file.

[SealLion]

Hello all;

I came across a very informative article on updating your computer's HOSTS file and ensuring that the HOSTS file doesn't get too big b/c apparantly, a too large HOSTS file can slow down your machine.


Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File


After you've gone to the web link, make sure that you do read the entire web page. ITs not that long. But is really informative to ensure that your computer is blocking unwanted sites.

There's also a link to ensure that your HOSTS file is kept up to date. You can subscribe to it, I believe.


Anyways...Hope that you like this article that I found. I think that you;'ll like it since it talks about computer security.


This is a very simple and really easy thing to do.



Hope you like it and found it useful.

[Aurion]

yeah...the HOSTS file is very damn important I figured that out back then when I had to apply certain tweaks just to get online patches,cracks,virtual servers & Bots to work...so it's right that you should have a very decent clean HOSTS file just to NJoy good connectivity...

btw,this is my 2000th post

[plentonimus]

Yeah, the website is great.

look at that post I wrote 9 months ago...

Für mehr Blocking über die Host Datei besuch die Seite: Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File (englisch)

I should really start writing in english on this board to better spread the information...

[SealLion]

.....

btw,this is my 2000th post

HOLY FRAK!!!


by the way, Aurion. Did you know that you can also update your hosts file automatically from a little proggy that I also found here at this link, today??

Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File

Look for the 'HOSTSMAN' link to download the little proggy. Or go here:

abelhadigital.com


Hostsman is a small 4 MB program that you can have run when Win starts. It'll automatically update your HOSTS file, when, if you want it to.



o

[anon]

Thanks for sharing this with us, SealLion
Having a good HOSTS file is quite important indeed, it works as a nice ad-blocker, and a security tool.

But the article says that to prevent network slowdowns under XP and Vista with large HOSTS files, you should disable the DNS Client. This is wrong, since disabling that client won't cache DNS requests, which means that you'll poll your name servers every time. This actually slows down page and element loading, and hurts the servers...

@Aurion: congrats

@plentonimus:

[Aurion]

Well,disabling DNS client service I guess won't hurt or cause severe problems as long as you are on a personal home PC...regarding networks,nah,I won't do that

[anon]

Yes, of course disabling it won't hurt at all in a PC without an Internet connection, but otherwise doing so is strongly not recommended, since it can slow down your connection more than a "big" HOSTS file. Plus it hurts the name servers continuously bombarding them with requests as you surf.

[SealLion]

Yes. I agree. I thought that there was something wrong with disabling the DNS. Instead, I just set it to manual. I figure that would be still OK.

[anon]

It's set to automatic here. But my guess is that that doesn't matter as long as the service itself is always up and running

[Aurion]

also you can ocassionally disable it when you just on your own & not using a VPN or something that requires to be part of a network...still I like disabling useless services,those like DNS client which just consumed bandwith & resources..

[anon]

I don't understand you.

It's when you are not behind a VPN that you don't have to disable the service.

And it actually saves bandwidth by caching requests instead of polling name servers every time...

[Aurion]

yeah that what I meant...since disabling such a batch file would hurt your bandwith really bad especially if you use online cracks/bots that require adding an extra line in the HOSTS file for them to function properly...

[anon]

I have used such bots, too.

But they wouldn't be affected by disabling the DNS Client service, as the HOSTS file is still top priority to the Windows TCP/IP stack. Then comes the DNS cache, and if there aren't any entries for what you're looking for, Win has to resort to polling your remote name servers.

What would be hurt is normal browsing...

[Aurion]

yeah....one of them to be mentioned the TurboBot that uses a pre installed Microsoft Loopback Virtual server just to connect to the main server in order for you have the configuration page loaded inside the game...it was a bit complicated story to be explained here,anyway,that HOSTS file served me very well back then regarding that mentioned point...so I do RESPECT it

[anon]

That makes sense, since the Microsoft Loopback Virtual Interface = 127.0.0.1; this way you could load the bot's settings in-game.

I respect the HOSTS file, too: back in the ArpaNet times it was the only way to find hosts through names: a big hosts file that had to be installed in every terminal, and translated entered hostnames to the corresponding entries inside the file. Of course, as the amount of hosts increased drastically, this had to be dropped in favor of DNS servers as we know them now.
Just a small bit of computing history ^^