Does HPHOSTS file block too much?

Computer Help and Discussions Software
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In another thread a poster wrote that his HOSTS file was blocking a site I recommended called Oldapps.com. It made me recall my experience with the HPHOSTS file, (which I assumed was the one he was using).

I used to merge it with the MVPS HOSTS file and found that:

1) the two of them together made for too large a HOSTS file and slowed my browsing to a crawl

2) HPHOSTS consistently blocked some sites which are pretty safe. If you browse their list, you'll be amazed at some of the sites it blocks. It's a good and worthy HOSTS file, and it's better to be safe than sorry, but I think it overdoes the security just a bit.

Personaly I"m currently just using the MVPS HOSTS file with HostsXpert from Funkytoad.com as my manager of choice.

As a poster commented in another thread, Oldapps.com has an OK Siteadvisor rating. In addition, I've checked and it also has a "Trustworthy" green rating from Web of Trust.

I think that if a file download site hosts any file which has ever had a reported problem, HPHOSTS blocks the site.

Zone Alarm Pro's spyware function continuously would block Tinyurl.com until I added it as an exception!

Update:

I just downloaded latest version of HPHOSTS file. It's over 3 mb! That's almost 6x the size of the MVPS HOSTS file! That's some serious domain scanning going on when visiting each website! I opened the file with Notepad, and sure enough it blocks Oldapps.com. It even blocks Freedownloadmanager.org, which also has a "trustworthy" WOT rating.

However, I must add that the HPHosts site is very impressive in that there's some nice utilities for downloading, some good links provided, and the HOSTS files has updates and signatures provided. In addition, when searching for a domain such as Oldapps.com to see why it's blocked, much information is provided with links to many reports:

http://hosts-file.net/default.asp?s=oldapps.com

HPHOSTS gives Oldapps.com their EXP rating which means:

EXP - sites engaged in or alleged to be engaged in the exploitation of browser and OS vulnerabilities as well as the exploitation of gray-matter

As I stated before, I think that if a site has ever hosted a file for download that was reported to be malware or adware, HPHOSTS blocks it. One look at Siteadvisor's rating here http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/oldapps.com and you can see that there were files hosted that triggered the HPHOSTS alarm.

HPHOSTS even links to the Google report:

http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnos...s.com&hl=en

What is the current listing status for oldapps.com?

This site is not currently listed as suspicious.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 51 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 0 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2009-08-27, and suspicious content was never found on this site within the past 90 days.

Does anyone know how often HPHOSTS reviews this list and removes sites that are clean? Their HOSTS file seems quite large, so it must not be done that often.

2

If a large hosts file is slowing your computer down, that most likely means you still have the DNS Client service enabled. Do you use HostsMan to manage your hosts file? It is easy to disable the DNS Client service using HostsMan (it is completely unnecessary).

Also in HostsMan, you should never use the "merge" option in the update window. If you select "overwrite", it will merge both hosts files together, and delete duplicate entries. I've been using both MVPS and hpHosts hosts files for years and it actually SPEEDS UP browsing because of all the ads that are blocked.

As for too many sites being blocked, only twice has a site been blocked that I've tried to visit. One was the oldapps.com site from my other thread, and the other was MySpace.com. I agree that MySpace probably shouldn't be blocked, but in HostsMan it's very easy to delete domains from the hosts file, so I just removed MySpace and all is good.

3

I closed my DNS Client at the turn of the century when I first started using a hosts file. :D

I'll take your advice and try both again, but the last time I used HPHOSTS, I found myself constantly going in to search and remove blocked sites. Remember that if "oldapps.com" is blocked, then there's also a listing for "www.oldapps.com" that has to be removed.

I've been using HostsXpert from Funkytoad, but that program does not seem to be able to dl the HPHOSTS file anymore, so I'll try Hostsman.

Are you also running Javacool's Spyware Blaster and/or Zoned Out? I'm not sure how often IE-Spyad and ZonedOut update anymore. and I rarely use Internet Explorer for browsing these days, so I haven't been checking it for updates/upgrades. I haven't used Spyware Blaster in awhile. Since I started using Avira Antivir Premium and set it for high heuristics I haven't come close to downloading malware/spyware. I do regular scans of the registry with Autoruns and look at key tabs, check Process Explorer, view TCPview from time to time to see if any foreign IP addresses and ports are open, and I run Hijackthis every so often to see if anything has been added. All this is in addition to Avira rootkit and AV scans on a regular basis.

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Are you also running Javacool's Spyware Blaster and/or Zoned Out? I'm not sure how often IE-Spyad and ZonedOut update anymore. and I rarely use Internet Explorer for browsing these days, so I haven't been checking it for updates/upgrades.

They are definitely not updated anymore. I have uninstalled both since I only use IE for Microsoft update. Spyware Blaster is definitely worth using if you use IE or Firefox. I use Opera, so SB is useless to me.

I would definitely recommend HostsMan. I use both MVPS and hpHosts hosts files and have experienced no slowdowns. Just make sure you use the "overwrite" option to remove old entries.

Good point about removing domains from the hosts file. It doesn't seem to be true about every site, but many have both forms (www.oldapps.com and oldapps.com).