Spybot hosts and Hostsman at the same time?

I am a non-techie. I run XP. Is there anything 'wrong' with running these two programs at the same time? In Hostsman I use MVPS hosts.

If it is a bad idea, is it possible to deactivate Hosts tool in Spybot (and not just 'hide' it), so I could run Hostsman on its own, if I so choose?

Hi xylophone :)

Yes, you can use the MVPS hostfile and the Spybot S&D hostfile together. In fact Hostman and Spybot S&D are just programs you can mannage hostfiles with, and they also provides you with one or more hostfiles to start with, so there can't be any "running" conflicts. Just add the Spybot S&D hostfile to the MVPS hostfile if you want that.

Greetz, Red.

Thanks, Red

Red

I notice that my hosts file (Windows/System 32/Drivers/ETC) refers only to the MVPS hosts, and not to the Spybot hosts, which appear in Spybot/Tools/Hosts. So where/how do those do their stuff if they don't appear in the actual hosts file???

xylophone:

To use Spybot's Hosts file feature go into Spybot > Mode > Advanced Mode > Tools > Hosts file.

To add Spybot's Hosts file to your HOSTS file click on "Add Spybot S&D hosts list". Spybot will take a backup of your current HOSTS file (see Note #1) and then add its entries. Spybot marks the beginning and the end of the HOSTS file entries it adds with comments as follows:

• # Start of entries inserted by Spybot - Search & Destroy
  127.0.0.1 babe.the-killer.bz
  127.0.0.1 www.babe.the-killer.bz
  127.0.0.1 babe.k-lined.com
  127.0.0.1 www.babe.k-lined.com
  127.0.0.1 did.i-used.cc
  …
  …
  …
  # This list is Copyright 2000-2004 Patrick M. Kolla / Safer Networking Limited
  # End of entries inserted by Spybot - Search & Destroy

When you use the “Remove Spybot S&D hosts list” button in Spybot, it removes the entries between those comments and leaves the other entries in your HOSTS file intact.

If you have already added Spybot's Hosts file, clicking the "Add Spybot S&D hosts list" will merge any new entries that have been added to its list during updates into the existing entries in the HOSTS file. If you Spybot's Hosts file, I recommend that you "Add Spybot S&D hosts list" after every update to ensure that your HOSTS file contains the latest information.

The Spybot Hosts file facility also allows you select and restore the HOSTS file to any one of the backups taken when you added Spybot's Hosts file. This is done by selecting a backup from the pull-down selection list of backups (▼symbol on the right of the "Restore backup" button).

You also can remove entries from the HOSTS file by highlighting the entries in the Hosts listing and then clicking the "Remove selected entries" button.

Note #1: Spybot’s HOSTS file backups are stored as hosts.yyyymmdd-hhmmss.backup (where yyyymmdd-hhmmss = year/month/day/dash/hour/minute/second of when the backup was taken). They are stored in the same directory as the systems HOSTS file:

• Win 95/98/ME = C:\WINDOWS
• Windows 2K = C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC
• Windows XP = C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC

When no longer needed they can be manually deleted using Windows Explorer, navigating to the appropriate directory and deleting them.

Thanks for this prompt and comprehensive reply. Appreciated:)