There is no HOSTS file in my Win 7, 64 bit OS
I wish to stop a specific HTTPS domain from taking over my browser.
Currently, i am forced to crash the browser to get rid of it for the current
instance.
How do i prevent this site from attempting to resolve (it never finishes connecting)

Thank you.

"FACE" <AFaceInTheCrowd@today.net> wrote

| There is no HOSTS file in my Win 7, 64 bit OS
| I wish to stop a specific HTTPS domain from taking over my browser.
| Currently, i am forced to crash the browser to get rid of it for the
current
| instance.
| How do i prevent this site from attempting to resolve (it never finishes
connecting)
| Don't visit the site. You can create a HOSTS file, if
you're unable to prevent the connection for some reason.
There's plenty of instruction online about how to do that.

Since you didn't mention what browser you have I'm guessing
it's Edge. If you have Firefox I'd strongly recommend getting
the NoScript extension. Then you can enable script only where
it's necessary and you won't have so many problems with
looping scripts.

On Fri, 17 Sep 2021 07:57:57 -0400, in alt.windows7.general, "Mayayana"
<mayayana@invalid.nospam>, wrote

> Since you didn't mention what browser you have I'm guessing
>it's Edge. If you have Firefox I'd strongly recommend getting
>the NoScript extension. Then you can enable script only where
>it's necessary and you won't have so many problems with
>looping scripts.

It is another Mozilla product called "Seamonkey", It uses the same GECKO engine that
Firefox did 50-eleven releases ago (or about 2014 last i heard). Anyway, some
add-ons are interchangeable between them so i will check into this no-script
extension.

Thanks......

On Fri, 17 Sep 2021 at 07:57:57, Mayayana <mayayana@invalid.nospam>
wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
>"FACE" <AFaceInTheCrowd@today.net> wrote
>
>| There is no HOSTS file in my Win 7, 64 bit OS

Are you sure? It's often in an obscure place, and may be hidden. FWIW
mine is C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts., but I'm on 7-32. Try

C:\Windows\Notepad.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts.

in a Run window. If yours isn't there, just try searching with
Everything; on mine, it only finds 32 objects, including that one. (I
can't remember if Everything includes hidden objects by default.)

>| I wish to stop a specific HTTPS domain from taking over my browser.
>| Currently, i am forced to crash the browser to get rid of it for the
>current
>| instance.

(Care to tell us the domain in question?)

>| How do i prevent this site from attempting to resolve (it never finishes
>connecting)
>|
> Don't visit the site. You can create a HOSTS file, if

Yes - if you really don't have one, create one - try blocking something
obvious like Google or bbc.co.uk first, to make sure you've got the
syntax right and have put it in the right place.

>you're unable to prevent the connection for some reason.
>There's plenty of instruction online about how to do that.
>
> Since you didn't mention what browser you have I'm guessing
>it's Edge. If you have Firefox I'd strongly recommend getting
>the NoScript extension. Then you can enable script only where
>it's necessary and you won't have so many problems with
>looping scripts.
>
Or at least a script toggle extension (I have one - I think it's called
"JavaScript Toggle On and Off" - in Chrome, and find it useful - you'd
have to toggle it _before_ going to the linked page, of course.
Actually, I see it also is in my Edge, as several of my Chrome ones did
at some point, I think when Edge switched to the Chrome code. I hardly
ever use Edge). But I agree, blocking the offending site in hosts is
probably best. (Whether blocking scripts in general is a good idea is a
different discussion, and will differ between people depending how much
time you're willing to spend on whitelisting/blacklisting.)
>
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Veni, Vidi, Video (I came, I saw, I'll watch it again later) - Mik from S+AS
Limited (mik@saslimited.demon.co.uk), 1998

"FACE" <AFaceInTheCrowd@today.net> wrote

| It is another Mozilla product called "Seamonkey", It uses the same GECKO
engine that
| Firefox did 50-eleven releases ago (or about 2014 last i heard). Anyway,
some
| add-ons are interchangeable between them so i will check into this
no-script
| extension.

noscript.net

There should be old versions available, but I'm not
certain. I have that domain in my HOSTS file because
it likes to call home, so I can't check right now whether
the older versions are available there. :)

I'm using FF 52.9 (11/18/2015) and recent New Moon
(8/2020) on this machine.
NoScript 5.1.9 is working on both of them. When they
switched to sandboxed extensions (FF60?) I think they
just jumped to v. 10. Those won't work in older browsers.

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Sep 2021 at 07:57:57, Mayayana <mayayana@invalid.nospam>
> wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
>> "FACE" <AFaceInTheCrowd@today.net> wrote
>>
>> | There is no HOSTS file in my Win 7, 64 bit OS
>
> Are you sure? It's often in an obscure place, and may be hidden. FWIW
> mine is C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts., but I'm on 7-32. Try
>
> C:\Windows\Notepad.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts.

Exactly. Of course there is a HOSTS.

Windows 8 has one in exactly the same place. For example, mine
has nothing but commented out lines. There isn't even a declaration
of localhost enabled in mine. The comment there, says why.

# Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.
# # This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
....
# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost <=== IPV4 entry
# ::1 localhost <=== IPV6 entry

127.0.0.1 facebook.com <=== mapping a domain to localhost
to dump outgoing packet.

*******

Every computer needs a good search capability, and the one
in the OS is not a good one, because it requires too much
fiddling to improve it. We can never be sure the Windows
search will find the HOSTS file. It probably would on WinXP.

Agent Ransack is an example of a better one.

https://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/

That's a brute force search. Places that are ACCESS DENIED
will not be searched, the example being C:\System Volume Information.
Even nfi.exe cannot properly list everything in that folder
(some things list, but not all of them).

Voidtools everything.exe is a different kind of search, which
in some ways has the same kind of infrastructure as the Windows
search (scans and saves the filename scan for later). It keeps
itself updated during the day, by using the $USN journal (hooks
events from that, so the system tells it about new file additions
or old file deletions, just as Windows Search does it).

https://www.voidtools.com/downloads/

But if you wanted something where the interface panel
has all the details to do a search, Agent Ransack is
the "good enough" solution for "claims a person does
not have a HOSTS file". You could probably delete the
HOSTS file, but then you're also in System32 and
there are permissions to consider. The HOSTS file
would (on any OS) be an administrators file, not
a personal user file. Windows only has a HOSTS file,
because some OSes before it had a HOSTS file for
support of networking. In a situation where there is
no DNS, it could be used to map symbolic addresses
to numeric addresses. Not every address listed in
HOSTS has to be 127.0.0.1 :-) Although typical user
usage patterns may make it seem like that.

Paul

Paul,

>We can never be sure the Windows search will find the HOSTS file. It
>probably would on WinXP.

Nope. When you start from C:\ The standard "search" will skip the Windows
directory (never found how I could alter that behaviour). Starting a
search from C:\Windows will go thru everything though (as far as I can
tell).

Another possibility under XP (and possibly W7 too) would be to open a
command-line box and do a "dir /s/b C:\hosts". Ofcourse, that "dir" only
works for filenames.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

On Fri, 17 Sep 2021 13:41:54 +0100, in alt.windows7.general, "J. P. Gilliver
(John)" <G6JPG@255soft.uk>, wrote

This was an "open-box" machine so possibly the first owner had made some
modifications and removed the hosts file if it had one. (seem there were about 3
files - an example and something else.) Anyway, i used the windows find function
and got nothing and then i used the Ztree find function directly on the
Window/System32 and SysWOW64 subdirectories and got zilch.

At this time it *appears* that an additional subscription on adblocker has solved
it. I am using Seamonkey (a mozilla browser) where it is happening. I might try
Edge if it comes up again.

Thanks for the input,

FACE

On Fri, 17 Sep 2021 10:03:29 -0400, in alt.windows7.general, "Mayayana"
<mayayana@invalid.nospam>, wrote

>"FACE" <AFaceInTheCrowd@today.net> wrote
>
>| It is another Mozilla product called "Seamonkey", It uses the same GECKO
>engine that
>| Firefox did 50-eleven releases ago (or about 2014 last i heard). Anyway,
>some
>| add-ons are interchangeable between them so i will check into this
>no-script
>| extension.
>
> noscript.net
>
> There should be old versions available, but I'm not
>certain. I have that domain in my HOSTS file because
>it likes to call home, so I can't check right now whether
>the older versions are available there. :)
>
> I'm using FF 52.9 (11/18/2015) and recent New Moon
>(8/2020) on this machine.
> NoScript 5.1.9 is working on both of them. When they
>switched to sandboxed extensions (FF60?) I think they
>just jumped to v. 10. Those won't work in older browsers.
>

Thanks again. I'll keep this in mind.
(BTW, my Firefox is release 92.0. They broke userCHROME.CSS a couple of years ago
and though there are ways to unbreak it i was tired of a decade of keeping the
browser chrome the way i liked it and so just said the heck with that level of
customization. (Although someone told me that if i had not told them it was firefox
they would not have recognized it.)

"FACE" <AFaceInTheCrowd@today.net> wrote

| (BTW, my Firefox is release 92.0.

There's a new NoScript for current versions. It seems to work
pretty well. Just not as involved as the original.

|They broke userCHROME.CSS a couple of years ago

I didn't know that. There are some things since v. 60
that are broken, with prefs having no effect:

https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/blob/master/README.md

It's a mess. Mozilla are trying to make Firefox attractive to
coroparate admins. Ever since IE4, Microsoft allowed corporate
admins to override IE settings with settings under HKLM. The
person using the computer could set whatever they liked and it
would have no effect. (Remember the AOL browser? It was just
IE with customization and several settings tabs hidden via the
Registry.)
Mozilla's template policy is similar. It also tricks people into
think they have control and it's also monstrously designed, on
purpose, so that only trained IT people can figure it out.

I don't see any notes about breaking userChrome.css. Maybe
that's a separate boondoggle? This is the first I've heard of it.
But I'm not using later Firefx on any computer that I use regularly,
so I haven't noticed.

On Sun, 19 Sep 2021 13:03:08 -0400, in alt.windows7.general, "Mayayana"
<mayayana@invalid.nospam>, wrote

>"FACE" <AFaceInTheCrowd@today.net> wrote
>
>| (BTW, my Firefox is release 92.0.
>
>There's a new NoScript for current versions. It seems to work
>pretty well. Just not as involved as the original.
>
>
>
>|They broke userCHROME.CSS a couple of years ago
>
> I didn't know that. There are some things since v. 60
>that are broken, with prefs having no effect:
>
>https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/blob/master/README.md
>
>It's a mess. Mozilla are trying to make Firefox attractive to
>coroparate admins. Ever since IE4, Microsoft allowed corporate
>admins to override IE settings with settings under HKLM. The
>person using the computer could set whatever they liked and it
>would have no effect. (Remember the AOL browser? It was just
>IE with customization and several settings tabs hidden via the
>Registry.)
> Mozilla's template policy is similar. It also tricks people into
>think they have control and it's also monstrously designed, on
>purpose, so that only trained IT people can figure it out.
>
> I don't see any notes about breaking userChrome.css. Maybe
>that's a separate boondoggle? This is the first I've heard of it.
>But I'm not using later Firefx on any computer that I use regularly,
>so I haven't noticed.
>
I don't recall ever using the AOL browser. I did use Mosaic for a while when this
new-fangled thing called the World Wide Web came out.
I think it was release 56 that was the first "night of the long knives" for firefox.
That was about the time they broke most (not all) of the add-ons.
and some of the extensions. Some of the add-ons i had become dependent on like
"Tab Mix Plus". They were supposed to "fix" that one to make it compatible with
the new versions of FF, but whether they ever did or not i don't know, i learned to
live without it.
I used to know the technical aspects of a lot of that but have forgotten most of it
-- often on purpose.
Basically what Firefox Control appeared to be saying was "to heck with the user base
and what they want, we are going to do FF like we want.".