Editing Windows:/etc/hosts

[sanjuro]

I was blocked from accessing www.emusic.com, a site recommended by Amydalayna, and after poking around, I realized that in c:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc\hosts, that hostname was bound to 127.0.0.1, the loopback.

I removed that entry and I was able to access emusic, but I was wondering do many programs and scripts access /etc/hosts?

I did download kazaa lite many months ago, and I noticed that my dns resolver cache is pointing to sites I don't want to request addresses from. Anyone know to clear that out as well?

[Toshi]

have you cleaned out spyware recently? spyware search and destroy...

[amydalayna]

I'm not sure if you told me or not...
But did you try ipconfig /flushdns?

[binary visions]

Windows Defender is good at picking up Hosts file hijacks.

Really, there should be nothing in there if you want the computer to be acting totally normally. For 99% of the population, the only entry that should exist is:

127.0.0.1 localhost

Most programs that access the hosts file are spyware.

[sanjuro]

So is there a resolv.conf in Windows, where the nameservers are kept?

BTW, I did try flushdns, but it did nothing.

[peter6061]

I use my hosts file to block unwanted ads. I think I posted this before, but if you search online for 'hosts ads' you'll get some sites that offer you an updated list of addresses you can paste in your host file that will assign all these ad / porn sites to 127.0.0.1. You'll almost never get ads on your PC. This is great for the work PC.

I think my last download had some 40,000 entries.