Blocking sites with HOSTS file

Just install Firefox with the Adblock and Filterset.G Updater extensions, and everything will happen automatically.

You will be amazed at the before and after screenshot of www.news24.co.za
 
Interestingly you cannot block Windows Update and some other Microsoft sites listed below by putting them in the HOSTS file and pointing to localhost as the DNS resolver in Windows knows about them and simply ignores the HOSTS file entry for them and always go to the local gateway.

windowsupdate.microsoft.com
windowsupdate.com
microsoftupdate.com
download.microsoft.com
update.microsoft.com
microsoft.com
www.microsoft.com
support.microsoft.com
wustats.microsoft.com
microsoftupdate.microsoft.com
office.microsoft.com
msdn.microsoft.com
go.microsoft.com
msn.com
www.msn.com
msdn.com
www.msdn.com

Pretty neat trick of theirs to make sure that malware cannot hijack them by fibbing with your hosts file.
 
Yip - cover the problem, don't fix it !

tibby.dude said:
Interestingly you cannot block Windows Update and some other Microsoft sites listed below by putting them in the HOSTS file and pointing to localhost as the DNS resolver in Windows knows about them and simply ignores the HOSTS file entry for them and always go to the local gateway.

windowsupdate.microsoft.com
windowsupdate.com
microsoftupdate.com
download.microsoft.com
update.microsoft.com
microsoft.com
www.microsoft.com
support.microsoft.com
wustats.microsoft.com
microsoftupdate.microsoft.com
office.microsoft.com
msdn.microsoft.com
go.microsoft.com
msn.com
www.msn.com
msdn.com
www.msdn.com

Pretty neat trick of theirs to make sure that malware cannot hijack them by fibbing with your hosts file.
Click to expand...
 
noswal said:
Just heard the latest podcast from Steve Gibson, there they reference the HOSTS file which can contain all the ad sites you dont want to be bothered by. www.securitynow.info and http://www.grc.com/sn/notes-045.htm

This will save bandwidth of all unwanted ads that appear within a webpage.
Click to expand...
Great show - just started listening to it the other week. Lots of other great shows from the same group at www.twit.tv
 
Steve Gibson can ramble sometimes but he even teaches old hands like me something new once in a while while keeping it easily digestable for newbies.
 
Blocking sites from the hosts file is OK for one or two computers, but for lots it'll be a nightmare to administrate.

Any decent Linux firewall (Smoothwall or IPCop) with Dansguardian can do the job as well... blocking out nasty sites. You can also add advertising sites to DG to block these out as well, thereby saving on precious bandwidth.
 
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