HostsXpert

[Ennovy]

HostsXpert is:

an ultra-groovy Hosts file Manager, Editor and Helper-outter

For a list of all features you can visit this link: http://www.funkytoad.com/content/view/13/
Explanation of hosts files: (for those few members of this forum who don't know that. One has to be careful these days )
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

For Blocking Unwanted Parasites

Download the latest hosts file here: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.zip so you don't have to type everything yourself
Writes settings: I only found a temp file of the edited hosts file in the application folder (v4.1)
Download the ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice. Launch HostsXpert.exe http://www.funkytoad.com/download/HostsXpert.zip

Have a nice day

[MiDoJo]

1 ) (Bonus) Win98-Vista Compatible (Not often found in a Host editor)
2) Very Small Footprint (362 KB with html helpfile)
3) Cool tools and editing options
4) OP mentioned it but MVPS highly recommends this.
5)Great for System Admin who want to quickly block ad sites
6) Great for "Guru" who have friends/family/clients who get a lot of ad tracking in their computers and don't understand things like iecookieview or emptying their temp internet files
7)if you edit your hosts file all browsers are effected (including portable ones!!!! )
more to come as I use it from my Pstart menu.
(can someone in the know check registry and stealth entries on this prog)
MiDoJo

[theboydanny]

(can someone in the know check registry and stealth entries on this prog)

Checked, only leaves registry traces in ShellNoRoam/MUICache, so that's ok. No other files on the system that I can find. So it's stealth methinks.
Nice tool, really handy.

[MiDoJo]

@theboydanny Thanks For the Research

Homer (and Homer/pro) is a program that adds a personal web-server to 127.0.0.1. Homer Pro is an install but Homer basic is just an exe and therefor is (as far as I can tell) portable. Of course there's not much of a reason to portable this one (Homer) but it goes hand-in-hand with HostxPert

and I guess if you want to freak people out or you can use homer to display something to show them what their new host file is blocking.

Back to HostXpert: I think this program is great. That said some of MVPS' blocks are not useful so when u import the hosts file be sure to 1)replace don't merge and 2)if you notice a blocked site that shouldn't be (My case was eMusic, because he called it a bitcomet site) HostXpert lets you first search and then remove by single line.
This is also a beautiful feature if, for instance, a person has a complex host file (with their own stuff added) and a Spyware adds it's own line. That way you don't have to just default the Host file and make them remake their entire HOST.txt. That's exactly what I used to have to do. With HostXpert I can find the line that's redirecting (again for instance) google.com to killerphish.org just by searching Google and delete just that line.

Andrew I hope that we've peaked your interest in this prog.

[theboydanny]

Little update, some further probing with Dependency Walker shows that it uses GDIPLUS.DLL, but again, that's not a problem.

I agree, MiDoJo, great little program. Makes it easier to edit the HOSTS file than say with notepad++ or an other editor, especially if you're not that much of a geek...

[Midas]

Very old topic update: FunkyToad.com no longer offering HostsXpert, but it is still available from Softpedia at www.softpedia.com /get/Security/Security-Related/Hoster.shtml.

Related topic at viewtopic.php?t=4310 ...

BTW, last release is v4.4.