Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File

[Soulburner]

The MVPS HOSTS file

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

[SoulsCollective]

Old. But still useful. Don't use their .bat file, just update it yourself manually from their text version, as otherwise you lose all your custom entries.

[enteon]

spybot search & destroy does the same, doesn't it?
with regular updates!

[Soulburner]

Old. But still useful. Don't use their .bat file, just update it yourself manually from their text version, as otherwise you lose all your custom entries.

Good point, I noticed this after I did mine. I only added 1 thing in there though.

[twilyth]

Thanks dude. I have wanted to get rid of googlesyndication text ads for a while. Kickin'g that b*tch to da curb yo!

[E6700booster]

Guys i know this may not be the right place....but im getting annoyed now....i keep getting this damn virus that changes banners on a lot of websites to VIMAX PILLS ad banner!! how do i remove it!! i use spybot and keep removing it ....but it keeps coming bak!!

[[XC] Hicks121]

malwarebytes............

[E6700booster]

malwarebytes............

YES IT WORKD!! LUV U DUUUUUDE!! but i'll let u know if it comes bak

[Soulburner]

Sounds like someone is surfing unprotected...

[Soulburner]

I'm going to bring this back up.

Does anyone have experience with using a large HOSTS file and disabling the DNS service? I haven't had any problems and have been running this for over a year. Almost everywhere I go on the net to find info about this, I'm told I should disable the DNS service or I'll run into problems.

What problems? I haven't had any.

[rogard]

The idea of disabling your dns client is to stop virii that change your local dns configuration to redirect your web requests. So the host file protection only really starts to pay off over other methods once you are already infected (and to quiet a high level) and most rootkits and keyloggers use IP addresses anyway.

If people are that worried then I would choose a central proxy with non intergrated authorization.
That way you could turn off external dns lookups (wouldnt break ad domains) and any process needing internet access would require a username and password, you would have logging and it doesnt break new sites.
If that isnt possible then perhaps OpenDNS and up to date antivirus software is the next best option?

[damha]

Disabling your DNS client also significantly impacts web browsing as every look up must come from your DNS server if it is not in the hosts file. Thanks for reminding me of the hosts file, it has been a long time since I last used it.

If you are truly worried, setup a private DNS server on your network. Hardware need not be fancy, a simple p3 box or a k7 would do.

[ToMeGuN]

The MVPS HOSTS file

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

Thanks for sharing. Helped a lot

[Soulburner]

The idea of disabling your dns client is to stop virii that change your local dns configuration to redirect your web requests. So the host file protection only really starts to pay off over other methods once you are already infected (and to quiet a high level) and most rootkits and keyloggers use IP addresses anyway.

If people are that worried then I would choose a central proxy with non intergrated authorization.
That way you could turn off external dns lookups (wouldnt break ad domains) and any process needing internet access would require a username and password, you would have logging and it doesnt break new sites.
If that isnt possible then perhaps OpenDNS and up to date antivirus software is the next best option?

Aside from malware, it speeds up browsing by blocking pretty much every ad and banner you can imagine, save for a few. It isn't blocking XtremeSystems however

So in that regard, it is worth it. I haven't noticed a slowdown so I never gave it much thought until I ran across talk of disabling the DNS service when using large hosts files. I found similar advice in many places around the net.

If anyone notices a negative impact on browsing, post back.