To protect a PC while surfing the internet, first of all we need to be careful not to end up in harmful and dangerous sites, those that have a programming code inside them that activates itself on browsers and infects the computer. In another article we tried to describe how a virus enters the computer in this post instead we see how to protect the browser and prevent it from opening that malicious code that carries viruses and which in English is called " exploit " (Wikipedia).
READ ALSO: Virus check and removal on Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer
I link to two articles, one on dangerous sites and the worst viruses, the other on how to block spyware and eliminate them.
Basically there are two ways to defend yourself and prevent your computer from opening dangerous sites : one using a program that scans for viruses and malware, eliminating them or putting them in quarantine; the other one, better, plans to protect the PC beforehand by blocking dangerous sites in order to prevent the user, even the least attentive, from any action that may bring viruses to the computer.
The best free antivirus works both ways but, often, if the user insists and does not notice that he has opened a malicious site, they just cannot prevent self-destructive actions.
We have therefore seen a great program, Spyware Blaster, which blocks dangerous sites automatically and also plugins for browsers such as Web Of Trust.
To preventively block malicious sites so that even if you try to click them, it is impossible to open them, you need to use the Hosts file.
The Windows file called " hosts " is located at the path C: / Windows / System32 / drivers / etc and allows you to give rules on the addressing of sites.
Briefly, the hosts file is a text file that acts as a name resolver similar to DNS and in another article we have seen 5 ways to edit the Hosts file such as changing the name of sites and redirecting them.
The DNS is used for websites so that writing to the google.com browser leads to the ip address 74.125.127.100 while the hosts file is mainly used to call the computers of a network by name.
So if you wrote a line with this text "127.0.0.1 navigaweb.net" on this text file, opening the browser, this wonderful blog would be unreachable because it would be associated with an invalid address (so don't do it !!!!).
Since 127.0.0.1 is the address that indicates oneself, there is no danger of redirecting the connections to this ip address.
To make it more understandable we say therefore that, if you insert on this file hosts, which is a simple text file to be opened with the notepad, the addresses of dangerous sites that have viruses and I associate them with the number 127.0.0.1, these will be relentlessly blocked for that computer, any browser or program is used.
Obviously it is not that we can write them one by one and we cannot make this list too long otherwise the hosts file would become too large and slow down the PC (I would say that it must not exceed 1 MB).
To import a list of dangerous sites into the hosts file in order to block them there are automatic programs like HostsShield .
This very small program adds exploited and malware websites between the lines of the hosts file and checks that this file has not been modified maliciously by any program or website.
Other similar programs are also SpyBot, the famous and excellent antispyware program, which has, among its functions, protection from hosts files.
In another article, however, there are programs to block dangerous websites or limit their navigation.
It is not these additional protections that slow down the PC or cause disruptions, my advice is to use them then, in case there are problems, you can always empty the hosts file from all the added lines but I don't think it will ever be necessary.
