On 9/23/2017 12:38 PM, Mayayana wrote:
"Rene Lamontagne" wrote

| Do I need the prgram "hostman as some have suggested?
| Does it slow your system down any?
| Do I need to do much else to make it effective?
| I have signed up for periodic updates.
|

I'd never heard of hostsman. It looks like it's probably
harmless, but not particularly useful. Anyone who
can edit HOSTS won't need it. Anyone who finds
that daunting is not going to do any better with a
superfluous HOSTS manager.

I think the simplest way to look at it is that HOSTS is
you personal phone book. A very simple, plain text file.
It just lists URLs and IP addresses for them.

When a browser needs to visit somewhere.com
it first checks HOSTS to see if the IP address is there.
If not, it then calls the "public phone book", a DNS
server. It sends in somewhere.com. The DNS server
sends back the real address: The numeric IP address.

All people are doing with HOSTS is to tell the browser
that somewhere.com is the local machine:

127.0.0.1 www.somewhere.com

127.0.0.1 is "here". Since the browser is already here
it doesn't go anywhere. HOSTS can also be used to
store useful IP addresses, but most people don't need
it for that.

I wouldn't expect any slowdown from HOSTS. The
MVPS file is unnecessarily bloated, but that should be
harmless. Looking for the string "somewhere.com" in
a very large file is still extremely fast. On the other
hand, it *is* extremely bloated. If you have a few
minutes it wouldn't hurt to clean it.

The only thing needed to make HOSTS effective is
to block the major trackers and advertisers. I block
3rd-party files in Pale Moon and don't in Firefox.
But I still very rarely see ads in either, because
nearly all ads are not at the site you visit. And most
come from a small number of companies. The
ad business monopoly actually helps. Google/
Doubleclick is both the biggest advertiser and
the biggest online spy operation. So just blocking
them helps a lot. Blocking just a few dozen more will
clean up most webpages. Because people no longer
sell ads on their sites. They just add code snippets
for companies like Google/Doubleclick, let them
"have their way" with site visitors, and collect the
bounty.

It's in the fine tuning that you can find a
difference. If you want to stop all possible tracking
and ads you need to keep watch on the list. I have
a HOSTS file of only about 300 lines. The MVPS HOSTS
file is nearly 15,000 lines. I don't see any ads. So
what's going on?

One factor is bloat. MVPS HOSTS has several listings
for clickonometrics.pl, for example. Do I need a Polish
tracker in my HOSTS file? I don't think so. It does no
harm, but most people don't need it unless they live
in Poland.

On the other hand, the MVPS HOSTS does not include
fonts.googleapis.com, which I have in my HOSTS file
to stop risky fonts loading and to stop Google tracking.
(Actually I block web fonts anyway, but I still block that
URL because so many sites link to Google fonts that it
serves as a tracking station.)
Some people might want those fonts. So MVPS HOSTS
doesn't list that URL.

All of which is to say that if you oversee your own
HOSTS file you might do a bit better. But even a simple
HOSTS file will greatly increase privacy, security and
webpage readability.

I also use Acrylic DNS proxy, which lets me use wildcards.
With that I block virtually everything Google except search
and maps:

127.0.0.1 *.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 *.googleadservices.com
127.0.0.1 *.googlecommerce.com
127.0.0.1 *.scorecardresearch.com
127.0.0.1 *.1e100.com
127.0.0.1 *.1e100.net
127.0.0.1 *.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 *.doubleclick.com
127.0.0.1 *.googletagservices.com
127.0.0.1 *.googletagmanager.com
127.0.0.1 *.google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 fonts.googleapis.com
127.0.0.1 googleadapis.l.google.com
127.0.0.1 ssl.gstatic.com
127.0.0.1 plusone.google.com
127.0.0.1 cse.google.com
127.0.0.1 www.google.com/cse
127.0.0.1 *.appspot.com

Have I got all the Google trackers? It's hard to
know. And new companies are regularly started.
So that's why one might want to update HOSTS.
But it you just download someone else's update
you don't know what you're getting. Some oddball
site in Poland is blocked but not Google tracking.
The MVPS file also doesn't block Google's 1e100.net.
On the other hand, if you take my list you may
run into trouble if you use Google+.

Sorry to go on so long. There are a lot of details.
At the same time, 5 minutes installing HOSTS is
arguably the single best thing for security and
privacy that one can do. I always install a basic
one for friends. It helps a lot and they don't even
need to know it's there.

I also provide a basic version of HOSTS, with
explanation and a Desktop script for adding to it.
If you're a bit handy with script you can use the
Desktop script to easily add new liostings to HOSTS.
(Though the usual caveats apply: If you run restricted
you might have problems running scripts and/or editing
HOSTS.)

http://www.jsware.net/jsware/browsertips.php5#host





Thanks for all the info Mayayna, I will read all this and your Website
stuff and carry on and work on this stuff now.

Rene