host file

[headack]

Hi!

I have Spy sweeper installed,and this software are telling me that my host file has no entries.
I found the host file in my windows xp systeem32/drivers/etc, but there are many of them (6)
What can I do to repair the host file?

[Variable]

You probably don't use a host file. Host files associate names with IP addresses. For instance, you want to go to yahoo.com. If you have a Host file with a mapping yahoo.com (=) 66.94.234.13, then your computer will accept that address and it wont ask your local DNS server where the site is ( its IP address). It's also a good way to stop sites from communicating with your pc. Say you know some sites that like to put spyware on your machine, you can add those domain names and map them to your own IP address. It's another way of blocking sites. Alternatively, spyware can add a Hosts file so that when you type www.google.com you actually are mapped to searchbar.com. Since your PC checks for a Hosts file first, it won't ask your DNS server for the address and viola your hijacked or so it seems.
It worth understanding how computers find and map IP addresses to domain names and how you can you can verify that your PC is actually seeing what it should be seeing. You can do this from a windows machine at the command line several ways, but the simplest is to ask another name server. For instance, from the command line you can query another name server to see where they think a domain is pointing. I'm sure I have digressed too much, but if your interested I will explain how to do it.