On occasion you will need to edit the hosts file on your machine. Sometimes because of an attack or prank, and others so that you can simply and freely control access to websites and network traffic.
How To Block Adobe Servers with the HOSTS File. Discussion in 'Software' started by stopads, Feb 25, 2009. Stopads Private E-2. Greetings everyone, I could use some help on how to block adobe servers in my hosts file. I'm new to the hosts file and I need help on how to find out what ip addresses and how to add them to the hosts file. Now, you can select the hosts file and click Open. Adding files to the hosts file is very simple. The hosts file uses the format: IP Address exampledomain.com. Blocking a website in Windows is as simple as typing the following into the bottom of the hosts file: 127.0.0.1 www.exampledomain.com.
hosts files have been in use since ARPANET. They were used to resolve hosts names before DNS. hosts files would be massive documents used to aide the network name resolution.
Microsoft kept the hosts file alive in Windows networking which is why it varies very little whether used in Windows, macOS, or Linux. The syntax stays mostly the same across all platforms. Most hosts files will have several entries for loopback. We can use that for the basic example for the typical syntax.
Canon captureperfect 3 1 download. The first part will be the location to redirect the address to, the second part will be the address that you will want to redirect, and the third part is the comment. They can be separated by a space, but for ease of reading are typically separated by one or two tabs.
127.0.0.1 localhosts #loopback
Now let’s look at accessing the hosts files in the different operating systems…
Windows 8 or 8.1 or 10
Unfortunately Windows 8 or 10 makes it annoying to open apps as administrator — but it’s not too difficult. Just search for Notepad, then right-click on Notepad in the search results list, and choose to run it as administrator. If you’re using Windows 10 this will be on the Start Menu.
If you’re using Windows 10, it’ll look more like this:
Once you’ve done so, open up the following file using the File -> Open feature.
c:windowssystem32driversetchosts
Then you can edit as normal.
Windows 7
To access the hosts file in Windows 7 you can use the following command in the Run Line to open notepad and the file.
notepad c:windowssystem32driversetchosts
Adobe Host File Block List
Once notepad is open you can edit the file. In this example we will block Facebook. To do this just enter in the following after the # mark.
0.0.0.0 www.facebook.com
Now that you have edited your Hosts file make sure to save it.
Now notice if we try to access Facebook in IE we can’t get to the page.
We also were not able to get to it in Google Chrome… (check notes at the end). Also for more info on editing your Hosts file, check out The Geek’s article on how to create a shortcut to quickly edit your Hosts file.
Ubuntu
In Ubuntu 10.04 and most Linux distro’s you can edit the hosts file directly in the terminal. You can use your favorite editor or even open your favorite GUI text editor. For this example we will use VIM. Like Windows 7, Ubuntu’s hosts file is located in the /etc/ folder, though here it is in the root of the drive. In order to edit the file you will need to open it as root which is why we use sudo here.
Now that it is open we can edit it to redirect Facebook into nothing. You will notice that with Ubuntu there is also a section for IP6. For most needs you will only need to edit it the top section and ignore the IP6.
Now we can save the file and try to go to Facebook.com. Just like in windows we will see that we are now redirected to a site that does not exist.
macOS (Any Version)
https://daskeen.weebly.com/blog/jpg-to-pdf-converter-online. In macOS, accessing the hosts file is very similar to Ubuntu. Begin in terminal and use your favorite editor, even is you wish to call a GUI text editor, it is easier to do so from terminal.
The file will look a bit more like Windows, only with a little less explanation. Again we are going to redirect Facebook.
This time it seems that 0.0.0.0 is a loopback and will direct you to the computers Apache test page.
Notes
There are some things to note from this walkthrough that we did notice. When tested it, Chrome did not use the hosts file in any operating system but we were able to block Facebook in Chrome by adding www.facebook.com. Also, make sure to place and extra line after the last entry for the section.
This should get you started in understanding the Hosts file and how it can help protect your computer. You can use it to block sites that you don’t want a PC to be able to access. If you have more suggestions for any of the operating systems we coved, then leave a comment and let us know!
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Internet is really a good place to learn a lot of stuff, but equally, it has a real time-wasting and/or dark side where you don’t want your family members or employees to go check out. One simple solution to deal with this problem is to employ some sort of hardware or software solutions which can effectively block unwanted sites, but using these solutions may be expensive and may also require technical knowledge to configure them.
That said, without spending anything extra or without messing with a whole lot of settings, there is a slick way built right into Windows which you can easily use to block or redirect unwanted websites. So without further ado, let us see how to block websites using Windows 8 hosts file.
Note: Even though we are using Windows 8, this trick will work with any previous versions of Windows like 7 & Vista.
What is Windows Hosts File
For starters, Windows Hosts file is a simple system file that is used to override the default DNS behavior. Again, DNS (Domain Name System) is a service which is mainly responsible for mapping the human readable web addresses to its numerical IP addresses. For example, whenever you try to access Google.com you are mapped to its IP address 74.125.227.224.
Windows Hosts file is a local file, i.e, it is specific to your computer. Because it is a local file with certain changes (like the ones shown below), you can easily override default DNS behaviour.
Note: For those who are using Linux, check out the guide here for using the Hosts file in Linux.
Block Websites Using Windows Hosts File
Windows Hosts file can easily be edited using any text editor, e.g. you can use your native Windows text editor Notepad. So let us get started.
1. First off, open your Notepad as an administrator. To do that, open your Start screen and type “Notepad.” Right click on the Notepad app and select the “Run as administrator” option from the list.
2. Once you have opened the Notepad, click on “File” and select “Open” from the list or simply press “Ctrl + O” to open the “Open file” window.
3. Here navigate to:
Once you are there, make sure that you have selected “All files” so that you can see all the files located in the directory. Here select the file named “hosts” and click on the Open button.
4. The above action will open the Hosts file with administrative privileges. Now to block a website you need to add a line just like the one below for each website.
That’s all there is to do. What the above line does is that whenever you try to access “example.com” or “google.com” you will be redirected to the IP address 127.0.0.1. For those who are unaware, 127.0.0.1 (localhost) is a local IP address, and you won’t get anything for that unless you configured your PC to run as a server.
5. Once you have finished editing the Windows Hosts file, press “Ctrl + S” to save the changes and close the Hosts file. The changes are immediate, i.e. no browser or system restart is required. If any user tries to access the blocked URL, they will get the web server not found error.
In the future, if you want to unblock or undo the redirect you can either remove the added line for that specific website or you can comment out of that line by using the “#” symbol at the beginning of the line. Once the symbol is added, it will look something like this…
That said, using the above tip, you can even add your own comments like the reason why you blocked or redirected that specific URL, etc.
That’s all there is to do, and it is that simple to block websites using the Windows 8 Hosts file. Comment below on what you thing of this handy trick.
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