21 replies to this topic

[John B..]

If it is not a big and tough question you can post away here

[hedley93]

Thanks for the reply. In the configuration of online armor, hosts is given down the side. What exactly are hosts? Looking through some of the sites in the list there are pharmacy, adult content, pornmoviedownloads, greencardspouse, casinos and I saw more than one reference to wwwcoolwebsearch. Also what looks like a lot of foreign sites e.g: .de, .ru and possibly over 100 with .it. In reading the help files it seems these sites are blocked from loading on the pc. Is this right? Thanks for the help. hedley

[John B..]

Hi,

Let's give it a try explaining this in an easy way.

Your Internet Service Provider has a big list of domains (for example whatthetech.com) and the IP that belongs to it. This is needed so that you can just type in the URL in the address bar of your browser and do not have to use the IP to get to a website. This big list is called the DNS server.

Your hosts file is a file that can be opened with Notepad. In this file you can write things that have to be done differently than what the DNS server says. Now the big advantage of this is that we can make a list of bad websites and then redirect them to 127.0.0.1 (which is the IP of 'local', so for you that is your computer and for me that is mine). That way you will not get to the IP belonging to the domain (what the DNS server would do) but you are safely redirected to nothing.

There are programs like SpywareBlaster and a function of Spybot S&D that will edit your hosts file. You will only have to update every now and then and you will be protected from a lot of bad things. Nothing needs to run on the background so your computer stays fast. Online Armor probably also has a function like this.

Please let me know if you understood and if you have anymore questions.

Regards,
John.

[hedley93]

Thanks for the reply. If I understand correctly, this is a list of sites that your pc wouldn't be directed to? If that is so, should the 'status' of these be 'allowed' or 'blocked'. At the moment mine are all set as 'allowed'.
Thanks for the help.
hedley

[John B..]

Hi,

If I understand correctly, this is a list of sites that your pc wouldn't be directed to?

Not completely correct. It is more like an exception to the normal direction, but if you use that exception to direct to nothing you use it the way you say.

So you can also do this if you would like that:
111.111.111.111 random.com
Now instead of being directed to the normal IP of random.com you will go to 111.111.111.111

So to make this a useful feature we mostly use it this way:
127.0.0.1 naughty-and-infected.com
Which means you will not be directed to the normal IP of the website but you will go to nothing.

If that is so, should the 'status' of these be 'allowed' or 'blocked'. At the moment mine are all set as 'allowed'.

Of this I am not completely sure. I do not know what allowed or blocked means. You can see what your hosts file looks like now by doing this:

• Click on Start
• Click on Run
• Copy and paste from the list below the correct one for your operating system. Be sure and include the word notepad
  
  • For XP & Vista:
    notepad C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
  • For 2k:
    notepad C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC\hosts
  • For 98 & ME:
    notepad C:\WINDOWS\hosts
• Click OK, notepad will then open with your host file

Then if you take a good look, close the Notepad file, change everything with Online Armor to 'blocked' and check the hosts file again you can see the difference

Regards,
John.

[hedley93]

Thanks for the reply. Followed the first part, then on blocking the sites in hosts a message came up that 'selected items would be deleted from the host files'. Is that ok? hedley

[John B..]

I checked the forum of Online Armor and there they say that 'allowed' means that you allow Online Armor to block those websites. That means that they must be set to 'allowed' to have most security.