TeeJay3800

They have since backed off a little on their EULA: http://gizmodo.com/5045050/google-updating...-be-less-creepy.

All I see is that it is supported for another 2 years and as far as web browsers go, there is no difference between the two. What about 2000 is so much different from XP that a web browser should work on one, but not the other? Every other browser on the planet (except Safari) works on both, so why not Google's?

Why no Windows 2000 support?? So what if it's "outdated." When it comes to application development, 2000 is nearly identical to XP. I see no reason why a web browser would only support XP and Vista.

I'm glad you find it useful, but my opinion remains the same. EDIT: Sorry, that response was a little rude sounding. I do have a pretty negative view of sites like MySpace and Facebook and in some cases, those that use them. However, if you have use them in beneficial ways like that, I think that's great.

Just another reason to avoid the stupid "social networking" sites which are full of pathetic people franticly adding people to their friends list in a desperate attempt to improve their self image. end rant

You're probably right, but the exception seems to be on older computers. I've tried both Firefox and Opera on my Win2k machine, and they're both much slower than the included IE6 engine. It sucks, because I'd much rather use the safer Gecko and Presto rendering engines. It's just that they load pages so much slower than Trident. I've been told that is because Trident is integrated with the OS, so there are some efficiency advantages that only become apparent on ancient PC's. Like I said, this is probably only true on old, weak computers. I'm sure on the average PIII and newer machines, Opera is much faster.

Then I guess we just disagree, bro. I have used Firefox for ages...since version 0.7 in fact. I still use it on my Athlon 64x2 XP machine, but on my lesser-powered Win2k machine, Sleipnir just fits the bill. On weaker computers, IE is a much more efficient engine than FF/Opera, and Maxthon had been causing browsing problems (and here). When I need to use the IE engine, I feel that Sleipnir is the best, and it is able to be easily customized in ways you can't in Firefox (like the item I mentioned earlier). There are definitely far fewer pre-built plug-ins available, but I barely have any installed in FF anyways, and I far prefer the Sleipnir RSS plug-in over FF's built-in RSS or any of it's RSS plug-ins.

The only thing holding Sleipnir back in my opinion is that the official Gecko plug-in is a slightly outdated version, and it's in Japanese. It is version 1.8.1 which is what Firefox 2.0 used. The latest version is 1.9.1 used by Firefox 3.1. http://public.fenrir.co.jp/en/community/viewtopic.php?t=3136

I disagree. Firefox and Opera have more pre-made plugins and skins, but Sleipnir can be customized in many ways the two biggies cannot. For example, I was tired of seeing the old outdated Google logo in the search bar, so I was able to use Google's new favicon there instead. Good luck doing that in Firefox or Opera.

I just started using Spleipnir, and it is EXCELLENT. By far the most customizable I've ever used. By the way, how in the world do you pronounce it?

Got it, thanks YK. I like how often hpHOSTS updates their file. It's a little annoying to have to re-delete certain entries every time the hosts file is updated (like myspace.com), but it's not a big deal.

That's actually only half of what every other software firewall does. You're forgetting about outbound protection. That's the most significant difference between the built-in XP firewall, and every other firewall on the market. It's also the primary reason people upgrade from the XP firewall. Every software firewall has decent port blocking, but it's the program control that sets the better ones apart.

Notice that there is a "disabled" item in the key at the top. If you click the empty box to the left of each entry, the # symbol appears which should mean that the entry is then disabled. That doesn't seem to stop the hosts file from block that site though. I tried hitting that box next to www.myspace.com, and it still would not load the site. That's why I'm confused.

So just highlight the myspace entry and hit the delete button? Will I have to do that each time an update to hpHosts comes out? What is the point of checking entries then, if it does nothing?

I have another hosts file question. Everything has been working fine with hpHosts, until today when I tried to visit MySpace.com. I can't believe this, but Myspace is actually part of the hpHosts hosts file! Everyone uses Myspace! I have never heard of malware or anything unwanted coming from that extremely popular site. I would like to be able to use Myspace, so I opened the hosts file in the HostsMan editor, searched for myspace.com. and checked the box at the left. I thought that would disable that entry and allow me to visit myspace.com, but it hasn't. Even with the box checked with a "#", and the changes saved, I still can't visit Myspace. How do I go about disabling certain entries in the hosts file?

A NAT router is the best kind of firewall to have. If you're interested in a software firewall, in my opinion the best is Sunbelt Personal Firewall. Excellent protection and features, and is low on system resource usage.

I've upgraded to the latest beta of HostsMan, and have successfully installed both the MVPS and hpHosts hosts files. It's odd that the MVPS file has so few entries by comparison, but I feel my PC is much better protected with the additional entries provided by the hpHosts file. Oddly enough, after adding both sources to my hosts file and deleting duplicates, my entries count is 2 less than yours...64,462. Strange. Thanks again for the help!

I am using the latest stable release (3.1.55). Generally I stay away from beta releases because of stability issues, but if it's working fine for you I'll give the latest beta a try. Thanks for the good links...helps answer a lot of my questions. I use HostsServer since that seems to speed up browsing, but if you don't use auto-update, I'm curious why you have HostsMan running all the time too.

Sounds good, but I'm having some trouble installing the hpHosts hosts file. When I initially installed the MVPS version, I just checked it in the update list in HostsMan, selected overwrite, and hit the update button. That same process isn't working with hpHosts...after hitting update, HostsMan appears to freeze. I'd like to do the update through HostsMan since I know for sure then that the hosts file is being overwritten. I know the hpHosts site offers an automatic installer, but I'm not sure how that installer would handle the MVPS entries that are already in the hosts file. What should I do here?

Alright, I didn't realize that you could use the overwrite option, and still not erase the other source's entries. I thought if you already had the MVPS version installed, and then installed the hpHOSTS version with the overwrite option checked, that it would overwrite all the MVPS entries. Apparently it will just add them and combine both source's entries. Will my comp get any slower with such a large hosts file? I have the DNS Client service stopped (using HostsMan), but I thought I heard somewhere that even without DNS running, that a very large hosts file can still slow the computer down.

That method would seem to leave old entries in the hosts file when each source is updated, which leads to an ever-increasing number of entries. I understand that HostsMan updates each your hosts file from each source, and then removes duplicate entries, but what about old entries that MVPS and hpHOSTS removes when a new version is released? It seems that only when the "overwrite" option in HostsMan is used are the old, out-of-date entries removed.

Be aware that you cannot change the file format of a drive without formatting it and therefore loosing all data. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

I asked a similar question in a different thread, but rather than use more than one hosts file at once, which hosts file would be better to use: MVPS or hpHOSTS? The latest MVPS hosts file has 18,201 entries, but that's much less that hpHOSTS' 53,668 entries. Are there any disadvantages to using the hpHOSTS file?

I've been using HostsMan to manage and update my MVPS hosts file for years, but I'm wondering if it is advantageous to use more than one hosts file at once. HostsMan also has built-in support for hpHosts, Mike's Ad Blocking Hosts, and Peter Lowe's AdServers List. I know that some of the other hosts files block many more sites than MVPS, but I thought I heard somewhere that an excessively large hosts file can slow the computer down or is detrimental in some other way. Also, the instructions on MVPS.org say to use the "overwrite" option when updating the hosts file, but that wouldn't be possible with another hosts file without erasing the other file and only leaving the MVPS version. Is it best to ignore the overwrite option and just use multiple hosts files? Or should I just stick with MVPS?

Humor is always good! I guess some of your comments came across as a little condescending. I appreciate all the advice and I'm relieved to know there isn't actually a virus on this system. I'd like a little clarification as to what the apps recommended here are for. - MBAM is an "anti-malware" product. Does that mean it is anti-virus or anti-spyware? Could I replace SUPERAntiSpyware with MBAM, or so they search for different types of infections? - Dr. Web CureIt! is strictly an anti-virus app correct? It does the same thing as products like AntiVir, AVG, etc (except without resident protection)?