hosts_manager

hosts_manager can manage your system's hosts file. You can include online-sources or custom files. hosts_manager includes a list of common Ad-Blocking files. Additionally it provides a modern interface for Windows-Firewall rules.

Availability

hosts_manager was initially created for Windows, but could also be built for Linux/Mac with minimal changes.

Features

• Edit hosts-file
• Create multiple hosts-profiles for quick change
• Automatically optimize hosts-profiles (e.g. remove duplicates)
• Supports comments on every line
• Compatible with PowerToys Hosts-Editor
• Test DNS-queries
• View and edit firewall rules
• Drag-n-drop host files
• Integration of Technitium DNS Server

Screenshots

Related projects

• AdAway: hosts-based AdBlocker for Android (root)

Included hosts-files

• AdAway
• Pete Lowe blocklist hosts
• StevenBlack's hosts
• Ultimate Hosts Blacklist
• lightswitch05's hosts
• ADios

Known issues

• Currently the firewall-manager gets no feedback if changes were successful or not. This does not affect enabling/disabling the firewall or rules and the removal of rules, but on edit and new.

Troubleshooting

Cannot modify system's hosts file?

A wrong configured hosts-file can lead to problems with the Windows DNS-Client. Annoyingly the DNS-Client will crash, if the hosts-file is very long. If the DNS-Client blocks access to the hosts-file, you cannot edit it anymore. To solve this issue

• disable the DNS-Client REG add “HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\dnscache” /v Start /t REG_DWORD /d 4 /f
• Reboot and delete or backup the hosts file
• enable the DNS-Client REG add “HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\dnscache” /v Start /t REG_DWORD /d 2 /f
• Reboot