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Useful tools for blocking known malware sites via your HOSTS file

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Carol Haynes:
Don't know if this has been mentioned before but there are a couple of interesting articles here on how to stop your computer communicating with common ad based servers and known malware sites.

The first is on the MVPS website (see http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm) whcih provides a lot of information, a regularly updated HOSTS file and a secure email subscription to be notified of updates.

On that page a little free utility is also mentions called HostsManager (Hostsman) which can be found here: http://hostsman.abelhadigital.com/ which allows you to manage the content of your hosts file and also mange the DNS Server client on your computer.

Well worth a read ... and very effective if kept up to date.

mrainey:
Thanks for those links.

Carol Haynes:
Your're welcome.

The four little programs linked on the main page are all useful (in different ways).
HOSTS secure has the advantage that it will download and install the latest version of HOSTS from the MVPS website. The disadvantage is that it loses any custom edits.

A better way of doing this is to save your custom edits in a text file, then use HOSTS Secure to update the HOSTS file every now and again, and then use "Hoster" to merge in your custom edits.

rrtwister:
I have been using Hosts Toggle for some time. It is a little bit of an older program, but works great for me. It can be found at http://accs-net.com/hosts/HostsToggle/

brotherS:
Hi Carol!

I used to update my HOSTS file regularly but didn't like to update it manually regularly. Is there any solution out there that allows me to fully automate the updating process?

I'd like to put it in my Autostart folder and forget about it then :)

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