How Does The Hosts File Work?
Share
Sign Up to our social questions and Answers Engine to ask questions, answer people’s questions, and connect with other people.
Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.
Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.
The hosts file is a plain-text file used by an operating system to map hostnames to IP addresses. When a user types in the address of a website in the browser, the computer checks the hosts file first to see if it has an entry matching the website address. If there is an entry, the associated IP address is used instead of performing a DNS lookup. This feature can be used to block specific websites from being accessed on a computer by redirecting requests for those sites to a local IP address.