Hi Everyone,
As promised, here is the post for my first weekly computing tip.
For those who don't know, my name is Ben and my wife is Lisa. We're becoming known as Mr. and Mrs. Nerd in our new hometown of Chester, NS because of my new technology service and consulting business, Nerds On Site.
My first tip, and probably one of the best tips to keep your computer free of spyware and adware is about a little known file, called the "HOSTS" file.
This file is a system file, located on your PC in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc folder.
Q: What's a HOSTS file?
A hosts file stores data in a table that tells your computer where to look for certain web sites. The hosts file is usually used by big companies to save bandwidth on their networks. Companies will download certain often-used websites and store a copy on their computers in the office, for example, www.yahoo.com.
Then, in the hosts file, the "nerd" would put something like this:
www.yahoo.com 192.168.1.50
The first column is the website address on the internet. The second column shows the IP (Internet Protocol) address of the saved copy on the company's computer. So whenever a person wants to go to www.yahoo.com on the internet, the hosts file says, WAIT, not so fast, instead of going to wwww.yahoo.com, go to 192.168.1.50 instead! This way, the page gets downloaded faster because there are less "hops" between computers on the internet. For example, to go to yahoo.com from my house takes sending a message between about 6 other computers in both directions. But by using a hosts file, that number goes down to 1 or 2 computers.
Q. How do I use a HOSTS file to make my computer more secure?
So that's the general idea of how a hosts file is usually used.
The functionality of a hosts file can be applied to regular users with just a single, non-networked computer, too. The hosts file can be used to block "bad websites" very easily. Let's say there is a website "www.iwillinfectyourcomputer.com" which loads some pretty nasty stuff onto your computer. Well if you want to make sure that that website cannot be viewed, even if some bad program tries to make you load that website, you just write this entry into your hosts file:
www.iwillinfectyourcomputer.com 127.0.0.1
Again, the first column is the website that you don't want to communicate directly with. But in this case, you do NOT want a copy of that website on your computer, so we set the second column value to "127.0.0.1" which is also called the "localhost". The localhost is an IP address of your computer, even if it is not on a network.
So, if you're still following at this point, the result of this is that when a program, or you try to go to "www.iwillinfectyourcomputer.com" the hosts file says: WAIT, don't go to that website, go to 127.0.0.1 instead. Then your computer loads the webpage at 127.0.0.1. BUT, wait! There is no website at 127.0.0.1. But that's exactly what you want - you get an error screen saying that the website cannot be found. Thankfully, you don't WANT to find that website - you want to block it from being loaded on your computer. So, in effect, 127.0.0.1 is a fake website address that loads whenever your computer tries to access "www.iwillinfectyourcomputer.com".
Q. How do you expect me to know every bad website that there is?
Good question. Thankfully, there are some good people at mvps.org who put together a hosts file with all known bad websites and you just have to download it and run a simple install program, included with the hosts file. You can download it HERE. This hosts file blocks tracking cookies, bad websites, fraudulent websites, and a whole bunch of other nasties.
You can download the hosts file and installer HERE and the installation instructions HERE.
Note: If you have ZoneAlarm firewall or Spybot Search & Destroy installed, your HOSTS file may be LOCKED to prevent unwanted changes by malicious software. You will need to turn OFF the hosts file lock before installing the new HOSTS file. See the HELP file for those programs to learn how to turn off the hosts file lock.
Note 2: You may notice some "error pages" when you surf the internet where banner advertisements used to be (for example along the top and right hand side of Hotmail) - this is perfectly normal because the ads you see on hotmail are tracking advertisements that monitor your Hotmail use to target your with ads that match your internet surfing behaviour.
Q. Wow this sounds great and I want to protect my computer, but this is too difficult for me - can you help?
I sure can. Nerds On Site has a special on right now where I can download, install and configure your computer with the latest HOSTS file for $45 + taxes. Or, if you want a full security setup, including firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware installed and configured, along with the hosts file, for $119+taxes per computer. These offers are on for all appointments booked before January 5th, 2007. Satisfaction guaranteed because at Nerds On Site, we don't service computers, we service PEOPLE with computers. Call Ben at 902-980-0989 or 902-273-2354 or email ben.wiper@nerdsonsite.com to setup an appointment.
Until next time,
Ben
No comments:
Post a Comment