How to quickly switch hosts file (Linux)

primer_dimer — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 07:27:14 -0800

How to quickly switch between hosts files on Linux? I use a hosts file to block ad and spyware sites. Occasionally I'll have a problem viewing a site and I want to check if it's due to an entry in my hosts file. I could just temporarily overwrite /etc/hosts with a default hosts file, but that requires restarting firefox, losing all my open tabs and any sessions I have running. Is there some extension/desktop widget that I could use to quickly toggle the non-localhost entries in my hosts file off and on?

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Tuwa — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:49:15 -0800

How do I get my browser to ignore a certain site? Occasionally when I go to my yahoo mail, I'm prompted repeatedly, by popup, for a password for one of the sites serving ads.

It's happening again, at this page, returning each of these two popups six times:

I've added adserver.adtech.de to my HOSTS file and restarted the computer, according to these instructions (i.e. I added a line saying 127.0.0.1 adserver.adtech.de and saved the file again, with no extension). I thought that would solve the problem but it hasn't; revisiting that page after reboot shows that the site is still pestering me for a password.

I want my browser to ignore any and all requests from that site--to dump it in the bit bucket and continue loading the page without its input. I thought that was what HOSTS was for; but if it is, then why isn't it working?

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How to quickly switch hosts file (Linux)

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