HostsOptimizer

HostsOptimizer is a tiny and portable piece of software that you can use to change the order of contents in the Windows Hosts file.

As there is no installation required, you can put the app directory in any part of the hard drive and just click the executable to run.

Another option is to save a copy of HostsOptimizer to a USB flash disk or other mass storage device, in order to run it on an computer with minimum effort and no previous installers.

What's worth taking into account is that the tool does not modify Windows registry entries or create additional files on the hard disk, leaving no traces behind after its removal.

The interface consists of a single window that provides direct access to all available settings. It is possible to indicate the Hosts file location if it's different than the default, select the number of host names per line, as well as to select the encoding method for saving the file, between ANSI, UTF-8 and UTF-16 (regular or Big Endian).

Other features of HostsOptimizer let you create a backup of the original Hosts file in order to revert settings to default if necessary, include the localhost and delete all comments. Optimizing the file is done with the click of a button. There are not other noteworthy options available here.

The app does not put a strain on PC performance, since it runs on low CPU and RAM. We have not come across any issues throughout our tests, since it did not hang, crash or pop up error dialogs. HostsOptimizer gets the job done.