In the end, the humble hosts file and innovators like Elizabeth J. Feinler lead to the invention of the Domain Name System still in use today. First, open Notepad as an administrator by pressing the Windows key, typing in "notepad", and clicking "Run as administrator":. You won't be able to see any files in this directory because they aren't text documents.
To change the file type, click on the dropdown in the bottom right of the Open menu and click on "All Files":. Note that everything is commented out with characters, meaning that nothing is actually being read from the hosts file. Modern versions of Windows include a sort of DNS system already, so if you visit localhost it'll automatically redirect you to If you're doing some local development and are having problems with localhost, you can just remove the comments from your hosts file:.
Then, open PowerShell by pressing the Windows key, searching for "powershell", and clicking "Run as Administrator":. After that, you should be able to visit localhost in your browser and see whatever you're hacking on. If you're still having issues, try closing your browser completely, then open a new browser window and try again. Even though hosts files have fallen out of favor with newer systems like DNS, they still work for legacy reasons.
And hackers have definitely taken advantage of this in the past. What they would do is point a common website like google. This IP address could serve a site that looks just like Google's, but is actually trying to steal your sensitive information. While this was a problem in the past, most security software like the Windows Security Suite can recognize and fix problems with the hosts file automatically. That said, if you open up your hosts file and see a lot of strange entries, then you may want to revert to the default Windows hosts file.
Just copy and paste the default hosts file from earlier in the article into your hosts file and save. Note that some third-party security software uses the hosts file to block dangerous websites. If that's the case, no worries — your security software should add all those entries back to your hosts file. We'll go over how this works in the next section. Don't want friends or family to visit certain websites on your computer? Or are you like me and get distracted by all the cat photos on the internet?
Also, close the browser windows that are open and reopen them. The one downside is that this only works on one device — you could just reach for your phone and browse Reddit on that instead. Still, it's a neat way to create some friction on your work computer. This leads nicely into the last trick, which is to use the hosts file to make your life a little bit easier. If you spend a lot of time adjusting your router's settings, or you have a cool project running on a Raspberry Pi , you'll know that typing in a long IP address is a drag.
Instead, you can use the hosts file to make connecting to other devices on your local network much faster. For example, if your router is at MoraleJ : If you want to publish anything from your own computer See my answer here. It will not restrict you from editing the hosts file like the gui. This will append your host entries at the end of the hosts file.
I had trouble saving mine too, but it was actually a very simple reason. Right-click on the hosts file, opened properties, unchecked the "read-only" box, then saved it without issue. Now it resolves through DNS. I want to use API service Can someone help me? If this is irrelevant Question here then i can delete it.. Ironically the reason some people are having trouble editing their hosts files is because it can be a really bad idea to edit the hosts file if you don't know what you are doing, so Windows makes it very difficult to do on purpose.
It sounds like you are trying to register for some service that wants you to provide a URL in order to get an access token. I think Twilio does things like this, as do some email marketing services. If I understand correctly, you will not be able to do this using your local machine as a redirect, because the service will want a publicly facing URL, probably for verification.
The IP address It's called brace yourselves , it's a super creative title : Hosts File Editor. Very nice. If I'm ever stuck on Windows so straightforward on Linux , I'll install that. Thank you, but is there any idea about using the command line?
I feel pretty uncomfortable with this solution. Your post is very great. I read this post. It's very helpful. I will definitely go ahead and take advantage of this. But remember, all computers are assigned a number, so yahoo. No need to get technical but there are services that are "invisible" to you that will take the name, perform a lookup and return the proper computer number so you can make the connection.
It just so happens that one of the first places to do a Name to Number lookup is the hosts file on your computer. What does this mean? If a malicious person wants to hijack your browser and redirect certain addresses to another site they could use the hosts file to do this. All they would need to do is add an entry to the hosts file to redirect any number of sites. So if your browser isn't going where it should be, a good place to look first is the hosts file.
You need to access the Windows folder on your root drive which is usually on 'the 'C drive' and the folder is usually named 'Windows'. Once in the Windows folder you'll need to open the 'System32' folder, then the 'drivers' folder, followed by the 'etc' folder. Once you've located the hosts file open it using Notepad. One thing to note: be aware that your windows installation might be in a different folder then the one mentioned above.
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