9.9 KiB
#Unified hosts file with gambling, porn, social extensions
This repository consolidates several reputable hosts
files, and merges them into a unified hosts file
with duplicates removed. This repo provides several hosts files tailored to you need to block.
- Last updated: May 06 2016.
- Here's the raw hosts file with gambling, porn, social extensions containing 33,151 entries.
List of all hosts file variants
Host file recipe | Readme | Raw hosts | Unique domains |
---|---|---|---|
Unified hosts = (adware + malware) | Readme | link | 26,945 |
Unified hosts + gambling | Readme | link | 27,660 |
Unified hosts + porn | Readme | link | 32,206 |
Unified hosts + social | Readme | link | 27,175 |
Unified hosts + gambling + porn | Readme | link | 32,921 |
Unified hosts + gambling + social | Readme | link | 27,890 |
Unified hosts + porn + social | Readme | link | 32,436 |
Unified hosts + gambling + porn + social | Readme | link | 33,151 |
Expectation: These unified hosts files should serve all devices, regardless of OS.
Sources of hosts data unified here
Updated hosts
files from the following locations are always unified and included:
- The Adaway hosts file, updated regularly.
- MVPs.org Hosts file at http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm, updated monthly, or thereabouts.
- Dan Pollock at http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ updated regularly.
- Malware Domain List at http://www.malwaredomainlist.com/, updated regularly.
- Peter Lowe at http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/, updated regularly.
- My own small list in raw form here.
Extensions
The unified hosts file is extensible. You manage extensions by curating the extensions/
folder tree.
See the social
, gambling
, and porn
extension which are included in this repo, for example.
Generate your own unified hosts file
The updateHostsFile.py
script, which is python 2.7 and Python 3-compatible, will generate a unified hosts file
based on the sources in the local data/
subfolder. The script will prompt you Whether it should fetch updated
versions (from locations defined by the update.info text file in each source's folder), otherwise it will use the
hosts
file that's already there.
Usage
Using Python 3:
python3 updateHostsFile.py [--auto] [--replace] [--ip nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn] [--extensions ext1 ext2 ext3]
Using Python 2.7:
python updateHostsFile.py [--auto] [--replace] [--ip nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn] [--extensions ext1 ext2 ext3]
Command line options:
--help
, or -h
: display help.
--auto
, or -a
: run the script without prompting. When --auto
is invoked,
- Hosts data sources, including extensions, are updated.
- No extensions are included by default. Use the
--extensions
or-e
flag to include any you want. - Your active hosts file is not replaced unless you include the
--replace
flag.
--backup
, or -b
: Make a backup of existing hosts file(s) as you generate over them.
--extensions <ext1> <ext2> <ext3>
, or -e <ext1> <ext2> <ext3>
: the names of subfolders below the extensions
folder
containing additional category-specific hosts files to include in the amalgamation. Example: --extensions porn
or
-e social porn
.
--ip nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn
, or -i nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn
: the IP address to use as the target. Default is 0.0.0.0
.
--noupdate
, or -n
: skip fetching updates from hosts data sources.
--output <subfolder>
, or -o <subfolder>
: place the generated source file in a subfolder. If the subfolder does not
exist, it will be created.
--replace
, or -r
: trigger replacing your active hosts
--skipstatichosts
, or -s
: false
(default) or true
, omit the standard section, at the top containing lines like 127.0.0.1 localhost
. This is useful for configuring proximate DNS services on the local network.
How do I control which sources are unified?
Add one or more additional sources, each in a subfolder of the data/
folder, and specify its update url in
update.info
file.
Add one or more optional extensions, which originate from subfolders of the extensions/
folder. Again the url in
update.info
controls where this extension finds its updates.
How do I include my own custom domain mappings?
If you have custom hosts records, place them in file myhosts
. The contents of this file are prepended to the
unified hosts file during the update process.
The myhosts
file is not tracked by git, so any changes you make won't be overridden when you git pull
this repo from origin
in the future.
How do I prevent domains from being included?
The domains you list in the whitelist
file are excluded from the final hosts file.
The whitelist
uses partial matching. Therefore if you whitelist google-analytics.com
, that domain and all its
subdomains won't be merged into the final hosts file.
The whitelist
is not tracked by git, so any changes you make won't be overridden when you git pull
this repo
from origin
in the future.
What is a hosts file?
A hosts file, named hosts
(with no file extension), is a plain-text file used by all operating
systems to map hostnames to IP addresses.
In most operating systems, the hosts
file is preferential to DNS
. Therefore if a domain name is
resolved by the hosts
file, the request never leaves your computer.
Having a smart hosts
file goes a long way towards blocking malware, adware, and other irritants.
For example, to nullify requests to some doubleclick.net servers, adding these lines to your hosts file will do it:
# block doubleClick's servers
127.0.0.1 ad.ae.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.ar.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.at.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.au.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.be.doubleclick.net
# etc...
We recommend using 0.0.0.0
instead of 127.0.0.1
Using 0.0.0.0
is faster because you don't have to wait for a timeout. It also does not interfere
with a web server that may be running on the local PC.
Why not use just 0
instead of 0.0.0.0
?
We tried that. Using 0
doesn't work universally.
Location of your hosts file
To modify your current hosts
file, look for it in the following places and modify it with a text
editor.
Mac OS X, iOS, Android, Linux: /etc/hosts
folder.
Windows: %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
folder.
Reloading hosts file
Your operating system will cache DNS lookups. You can either reboot or run the following commands to manually flush your DNS cache once the new hosts file is in place.
Mac OS X
Open a Terminal and run:
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache;sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
Windows
Open a Command Prompt:
Windows XP: Start -> Run -> cmd
Windows Vista, 7: Start Button -> type cmd
-> right-click Command Prompt ->
"Run as Administrator"
Windows 8: Start -> Swipe Up -> All Apps -> Windows System -> right-click Command Prompt -> "Run as Administrator"
and run:
ipconfig /flushdns
Linux
Open a Terminal and run with root privileges:
Debian/Ubuntu sudo /etc/rc.d/init.d/nscd restart
Linux with systemd: sudo systemctl restart network.service
Fedora Linux: sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager.service
Arch Linux/Manjaro with Network Manager: sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager.service
Arch Linux/Manjaro with Wicd: sudo systemctl restart wicd.service
Others: Consult this wikipedia article.
Goals of this unified hosts file
The goals of this repo are to:
-
automatically combine high-quality lists of hosts,
-
provide easy extensions,
-
de-dupe the resultant combined list,
-
and keep the resultant file reasonably sized.
A high-quality source is defined here as one that is actively curated. A hosts source should be frequently updated by its maintainers with both additions and removals. The larger the hosts file, the higher the level of curation is expected.
For example, the (huge) hosts file from hosts-file.net is not included here because it is very large (300,000+ entries) and doesn't currently display a corresponding high level of curation activity.
It is expected that this unified hosts file will serve both desktop and mobile devices under a variety of operating systems.