Safer surfing….
Recently I came across MVP Hosts.
I am sure all of you have been annoyed with those unexpected redirects of your web pages when you least expect. What about those blinking ads on your web mail.
I came across this program which replaces your hosts file and prevents all your redirection. I am sure it is worth the while to try this out.
By replacing your hosts file you can rid your computer of all its redirects to those unwanted sites.
In Windows your hosts file is located in
C:/windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts
This can be easily updated / installed by a bat. file you have downloded
In Linux it is located in /etc/hosts.
You can sudo gedit /etc/hosts then copy and paste the file you downloaded.
This is a simple way to rid your computers of spy ware and malicious software.
The MVP Hosts webpage
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
Download link
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.zip
5 responses so far ↓
vinstan // November 15, 2007 at 5:02 am |
My suggestion for installing this program on windows is to copy and paste the hosts file rather than using the .bat file.
Just a precaution.
terras // December 17, 2007 at 2:02 pm |
Well, it doesn’t get rid of spyware of malicious software on your machine, you’d need like Ad-Aware or Spybot SD for that, but it does fix your browser if it gets hijacked. However, if the underlying program is still on your machine your host file will just get junked up again.
vinstan // January 6, 2008 at 10:02 pm |
You are right this is not a spy sweeper. Well it is not a panache.
It is one more step that you can take to make things a little bit safer.
All this does is prevents the restricted site which comes in the form of image links etc. accessing your computer. Then you know what can happen.
raphen // January 13, 2008 at 3:19 am |
hi. I am running Ubuntu6.10 LTS and it seems I donthave an etc/host folder. anywhere else this file can go?
vinstan // January 14, 2008 at 6:06 pm |
I believe hosts is not a folder.
In etc if you scroll down below all the folders you will find the hosts file.
This is what I did
“sudo gedit /etc/hosts”
Hope this helps.