Are you aware about the Windows Hosts file?
If you are
questioning what a host file is, a host file is a Windows plain-text file
designed for mapping hostnames to IP addresses along with the host name allocated
to your computer is known as local host. Every single website in the internet has
an IP address linked to it. At the present, the hosts file works in mapping it
to the real domain name. A clean hosts file has usually a single entry for
local host. 127.0.0.1 Is the IP of the local host and every domain name in the
hosts file which is correlated with this IP cannot access the Internet to keep
trapped in your pc. For this reason, security programs can take it your
advantage and utilize the hosts file to make your pc less dangerous. Even so,
viruses can also edit the file and prevent you from using the internet. Whenever
you see a line beginning with a pound sign (#) are called comments, and the
primary function is to write descriptions.
Quite a few people use this secret to block websites – for
one example, you can point
Facebook.com at 127.0.0.1 that is your PC’s local IP
address. When anyone attempts to access
Facebook.com on your PC, your PC will connect
to itself at 127.0.0.1. It would not find a web server; therefore the
connection will instantly fail.
Here are the certain areas of your Windows Hosts file:
- Windows XP - C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\Etc
- Windows Vista - C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\Etc
- Windows 7 - C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\Etc
- Windows 8 - C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\Etc
- Windows 2008 Server - C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\Etc
You are able to manually fix your Hosts File. Hosts files
are simply a plain text file; you can easily amend using a Notepad or any
specific text editor. To make changes simply open the Hosts File in your
Notepad, make the suitable changes and re-save the file. Open your hosts file by
Double-clicking on the Hosts file and selecting to open with Notepad. Delete or
remove any lines without the (#) with the exception of the local host entry. Save
the file.
In case you are having troubles following the instruction
above you can download a tool from Microsoft to automatically reset your hosts
file.