bfbagain: An ounce of prevention,

[bfbagain]

as the saying goes....but to put it into a more appropriate context, let's say, "a minute of action, will prevent hours of agony."

As most "windows" users know, or are having the displeasure of discovering, the internet has become a very nasty place.

One of the more unpleasant experiences is having to deal with spyware, adware, malware, what have you.

However, there is a very, and mostly unknown, prevention of most of these little nasties from annoying you for hours.

And one of the very first files that these little buggers change, and then make memory resident through their code, is the "hosts" file that resides in the windows/system32/drivers/etc directory. (Folder for the MS politically correct)

If you're NOT infected already, or you have been but haven't employed this little protective measure (less is more people). then a minute of your time will save a bunch.

Here's what you do: Click on the link at the bottom of the page. Save it to your desktop. Unzip it, then copy the file "hosts", and paste it to the "folder" listed above, i.e., the etc folder. Select yes to overwrite the file and you're done!

That's it. Really! For the most part, it will be a rare event for you to receive any of these little buggers for awhile. And, if you visit the following site, http://www.greyknight17.com/hosts.htm they will periodically update the list in the file.

Good and safe computing
bfb

http://www.greyknight17.com/downloads/hosts.zip

[toddler]

...keep in mind that some companies, albeit few nowadays, manually edit and populate the hosts file with important information, like the name and IP address of a master domain controller. This can be prevalent in a Windows NT domain structure where the workstation in question is perched on a subnet different than the master domain controller.

Good advice from bfb, just make sure you check the contents of the hosts file before a wholesale overwrite.

toddler

[bfbagain]

but most of the people who would be managing Windows domains, a) would know this, and b) shouldn't be getting their advice from a relatively obscure (in the IT world that is) "Computing for counters" message board for advantage players. Vegas Casinos, (not the hotels, restaurants, bars, strip clubs, etc.) aren't too disappointed I imagine, that Comdex is no longer on the convention menu. :-)

I would hope that this little bit of technical insight would be useful for most "average" computer users, and thus was my motivation for providing it.

I did think long and hard before even volunteering it, but I did. Then I get lefty (at bj21) advising against it.

As I responded there, he could do what he wants, as I'm sure I'm just another person with an opinion... :-) Then again.....

thanks for your comments toddler
bfb