What are those entries in the Hosts file?

[AndyB]

Hi,

I updated to 1.6, switched off the irritating balloons and looked at what happened. Here I found thousands of entries in the hosts file. The last time this happened, my XP system went berserk. Now I'm on Vista SP1.

Will this happen again?

What do those entries in the hosts file mean?

What do they do?

Thank you for an explanation.

//AndyB

[drragostea]

Rest assured those entries are harmless to your computer. Those entries were added by Spybot-SD's Immunization feature which adds malicious sites to both your browsers block list and the HOSTS File. What the HOSTS file is in a general idea, is that it prevents access to that site on your computer (which in most cases is malicious and has the potential to damage your computer and its files). In other words you can say the HOSTS file is used to block unwanted parasites.

Read this: How does Spybot-SD prevent the installation of malware/spyware (http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=281)

Out of curiosity, how did your Windows XP OS go "berserk"? I betting it's another variable that's causing this. Was it like freezing and crashing?

[blues]

my computer freezed when using all this hostsfiles with the dns client enabled: spybot hosts, hphosts and mvps hosts. it doesnt freeze anymore now with the dns client disabled.

here is about the hostsfile: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

and more about the dns client: http://forum.hosts-file.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=627&sid=a2f5a3d350bfbe8fb61fc1b02c7c54a8

[AndyB]

Hi,

Thanks for the pointer.

I understand that the "suspicious" sites are re-routed back "home". I just raised an eyebrow when it grew to ~250k.

My XP system went crazy with millions of pop-ups per second as every entry in the hosts file came up on screen. OK, I'm exaggerating a bit, but it was unnerving, until I traced it to the hosts file, removed all entries and all was quiet. Still dunno what actually triggered this.

Cheers
//AndyB

[md usa spybot fan]

AndyB:

What software is issuing the "... millions of pop-ups per second ..." when you immunize the HOSTS file?