Hi,
creating a hostfile on MS-OS is really cool.
Your browser needs to know the IP adresses
of all the links on any downloaded page.
So the browser first checks - is there a hostfile?
If there is none it gets the info via internet from
the chosen nameserver.
If a hostfile is present it checks content for needed
hostadresses.
Now the cool thing : you assign the number
127.0.0.1 to any hostname you like .
I assign it to hosts like xxx.doubleclick.net,
all the internetadvertiser I come across.
127.0.0.1 points to the local host viz yourself but
on the computer there is no such info.
So you get an errormessage but not banneradverts.
And this goes so fast your browser pagebuilding
time also improves.
Of course you also can assign real IPnumber to
the host you contact all the time. Cuts down
on browsertime to find the adress from the
nameserver.
My sample hosts file you can find at
http://195.74.192.154/~alilip/hosts.html