Annoyances.org - re: How the HOSTS file works (Windows 95 Discussion Forum)


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re: How the HOSTS file works
Saturday, May 5, 2007 at 10:25 am
Windows 95 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Billyray (14 messages posted)

Thanks for the great write up Jerry! It was very helpful. Sorry it took a while for me to reply. I've been upgrading some other stuff on this Win 95 computer and have been distracted with that. But I am still playing around with the Hosts idea.

On Thursday, May 3, 2007 at 12:51 pm, Jerry wrote:
>Hi Billyray:
>
>The Windows HOSTS file was originally designed to
>speed up DNS lookups.
>
>When you type "www.google.com" in your browser
>address bar, your computer first goes to a DNS
>lookup server to get the actual address of
>Google, which in my case (Google has several) is
>"72.14.209.104", which my browser then connects
>to. So, when you type "www.google.com", your
>computer has to make two calls, one to the DNS
>server, then a second one to 72.14.209.104, before
>you actually are presented with the Google page.
>
>In the old days of slow computers, the HOSTS file
>allowed you to speed up this process by keeping a
>list, locally on your own computer, of Internet
>addresses ("72.14.209.104") that you used
>frequently. The HOSTS file is just a text file
>that is checked whenever you type an address in
>your browser. When you type "www.google.com",
>your computer first checks your local HOSTS file
>to see if you have a listing for "www.google.com"
>and an Internet address number it can use without
>going out on the Internet to use a DNS lookup
>server.
>
>Most people don't use this list for speeding up
>their Internet connections anymore, but the
>infrastructure is all still in place, and the
>HOSTS file can be used to block unwanted sites.
>It works like this:
>
>It's unlikely that you're going to type
>"www.badsite.com" in your browser yourself, but
>what happens if a web page you visit makes a call
>on its own to "www.badsite.com" (for an
>advertisement, for example)?
>
>A "managed HOSTS file" will have a listing
>(contibuted by the members and users) for
>"www.badsite.com", and there will be a listing in
>the HOSTS file for it pointing all calls for that
>site back to your local computer ("127.0.0.1"),
>which, of course, has no advertisements to
>display.
>
>If you've got your HOSTS file installed properly,
>your should find a file in
>C:\WINDOWS
>called "HOSTS" (with no extension). If you used
>the HOSTS file I recommended,
>http://hosts-file.net/?s=Download
>you will get it as a file called HOSTS.TXT, and
>you will have to change the name to "HOSTS"
>(without an extension).
>
>You can open the HOSTS file with a text editor.
>If you're using Windows 95, and you're trying to
>use the HOSTS file I recommended, you won't be
>able to open it with NOTEPAD, because it's too
>large. However, it should open in WORDPAD all
>right.
>
>To test to see if your HOSTS file is working,
>try this:
>
>Rename your HOSTS file to "hosts.off".
>Open your browser, and type "www.dot.tk" in the
>address bar. (I guarantee this won't hurt your
>computer -- "dot.tk" has gotten itself blacklisted
>because a lot of its customers host "questionable"
>sites there -- but the main dot.tk site is benign.
>You should see a simple HTML page that says
>"Renaming the Internet."
>
>Now, close your browser completely (not just that
>one page) -- shut down Internet Explorer (or
>Firefox or Opera) completely. Change the name of
>the HOSTS file from "hosts.off" to "hosts".
>
>Start your browser, and type "www.dot.tk" again.
>This time you should get a "Page Not Found" error
>message. This is because your HOSTS file is
>pointing calls for "www.dot.tk" at your own
>computer, rather than at the DOT.TK server.
>
>You can turn your HOSTS file on and off by
>renaming it (hiding it) anytime you want to surf
>without its protection. I use a cute little
>application called HOSTS TOGGLE that puts a little
>icon in my system tray. Clicking on the icon
>does all this renaming automatically, so the HOSTS
>file can be turned on and off easily. You can
>get HOSTS TOGGLE for free here:
>http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/HostsToggle/
>
>Jerry
>