It is important for the operations of your system that the host file exist. The only entry that MUST be present isOriginally posted by dan@Oct 31 2004, 04:02 PM
I found a file called host on my pc that was changed by spyware adaware or whatever.
127.0.0.1 localhost
This is the loopback address, without this, some apps which use the localhost will have problems. As for blocking annoying pop-ups. just change those entries to all using 127.0.0.1
This will instead of fetching the ads from the servers. be blocked, since the computer will believe the host exists on the localhost. which it does not, so the ad will be blocked.
I have made a host file, which contains well over 24,000 - thats twenty-four thousand, hosts, being blocked by the host file.
As long as the entries in the host file all resolve to 127.0.0.1 then no need to remove it.