The host file (hosts) is needed to connect to different domain nodes. Using a text file host, you can block different connections. Most often, the question of how to open a host and what to do with it arises after a virus attack. For example, Internet users often face the problem of opening some sites, their pages on social networks, etc. And the reason may be just a change in the content of the host file. To fix the problem, you need to know how to open the host and how to fix it.
Instructions
Step 1
The host file is located at C: / Windows / System32 / drivers / etc. Therefore, you need to go through this path, opening the folders one by one - first open the folder where Windows is installed, find and open the system32 folder in it, then find and also open the drivers and etc. folders. This final folder will contain the host. Hovering the cursor over it, you must click the "Open" item. In order to open the host file, you need to use any text editor such as Notepad, Notepad ++ or any other. It is important to take into account the "All files" item in the "Files of type" list, because the host has no extension and is invisible, for example, for Notepad, which displays txt files by default.
Step 2
After the file is open, you need to carefully study it. The host file contains mappings of IP addresses to host names. Opening this document, you can see a list consisting of the name of the site and the IP address that is assigned to it. Each item in the file must be on a separate line. The IP addresses are in the first column, followed by the site-specific name. In this case, the IP address and the site name must be separated by at least one space. If there is any explanation to the address, then it goes through the # sign. Changes to the address list can be manually made by the user as well as by malware. By default, the host file contains only the entry "127.0.0.1 localhost".
Step 3
To make the changes made to the host file invisible to the user, the records can be located at the very bottom of the text document. Therefore, even if you can see empty space after the last line, but by scrolling you can go down the file, be sure to do this and check that the entire remaining document is really empty to the very end. In some cases, it is recommended to simply delete the modified host file. However, if possible, it is better not to do this. It is advisable to erase all unnecessary records from it, and then save. After that, the computer needs to be rebooted.
