Is there significant value in using a MVPS Hosts file?

[spc3rd]

Greetings everyone...again!

It was suggested to me that I should consider using a MVPS Hosts file from the following link:

mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm/

I'm a little befuddled as to the value of trying to download this as opposed to importing the IP Blocklists from the Blocklist Pro site (as I've been doing), and my current use of Spywareblaster.

Could someone explain to me if there is any significant value in going through the hassle of downloading that MVPS list and whether or not it is really going to provide any improvment to my current security setup? (Frankly...I'm not even sure how to download it without messing up something).

Thank you for your time and any enlightenment!

[MTDay]

Belt & braces, I guess, but large hosts files (and this one is!) have a negative effect on performance - I'm thinking of trying one but with the Acylic caching DNS proxy http://mayakron.altervista.org/suppo...p?path=Acrylic since that is supposed to be more efficient - though a list built specifically for Acrlic, could be condensed using the wildcard features - Acrylic is compatible with Windows hosts format, but improves on it.

[spc3rd]

Once again...I appreciate the follow-up feedback, MTDay!

[KronckeW]

windows dns client is notorious for getting slower as the hosts file get larger. if you use a 3rd party hosts file like the subject one, it's best to go into the admin tools, services, and turn off/disable the dns client service. even better is to not only turn it off but additionally use acrylic instead of the ms dns client like mtday suggested. if you convert the hosts file to the acrylichosts it is even better as you can as noted use wildcards (don't use duplicate entries in both). if you use acrylic, make sure your application or global dns rule also include localhost (127.0.0.1) as a valid dns source. i use

where the protocol is utp
and the remote address is dns servers, 127.0.0.1
and the remote port is dns
allow

[Manny Carvalho]

Wayne, have you actually measured an improvement in DNS lookups by using Acrylic?

I thought you are using OpenDNS as your DNS service which is pretty reliable and it seems to me that having a local proxy DNS proxy won't offer much improvement unless you've got a fast connection. I'm just wondering as I haven't tried it yet.

As far as blocking files, like the HOSTS file, I'm of the opinion if one is a savy user then they slow things down. Having to look through all pages in phone book for every IP address, no matter how fast your CPU is, has got to slow things down a little. They do, of course, keep you from going to known malware sites; speed considerations aside, that can be a good thing.

[KronckeW]

i used to use opendns as the dns servers inside the proxy, but i stopped as google's are faster. opendns was having some difficulties for me with some sites.

google's namebench dns benchmarker says it's substantially faster than the fallback 2nd dns server (google's at 8.8.8.8) or the router's (192.168.1.254) British Telecom choices - which i can't change. results attached. the proxy is the 127.0.0.1 item. 50 nearest dns servers tested with 250 dns queries each. note opendns's are at 66% slower than using the proxy & it's cache. BT's came out fairly fast, might take the reccommended values....

Capture 000.jpg

i vacillate between using acrylic and deadwood (deadwood doesn't use it's own hosts file). currently using deadwood as i'm on the developer's beta testing list, tho he's slowed/stopped developement while looking for a new sponsor. might go back to acrylic for a while till he's back on track.

acrylic was not being developed for a long time, but has recently been updated.

i don't use a large hosts file, if i did, i'd stick with acrylic & put the entries into the acrylichost file in lieu of windows host file.

[Manny Carvalho]

That's interesting. I ran that app and it said that Google DNS would be faster but OpenDNS was close. It did, however, point out that I'm not exactly setup correctly with my DNS server. Apparently, I have 192.168.254.254 as my preffered server and OpenDNS as my backup. I probably have the Windows DNS service going. I'll have to go fix that. Thanks Wayne.

dns.png

[KronckeW]

i had initially used just localhost as the primary dns, with no secondary. OS (win7 x64) decided to give me 192.168.1.254 (my router) as a backup, even tho ipconfig did not show it namebench did. i've since reset my dns per namebench's recommendations, localhost primary & the two bt's as secondary & tertiary.

we are of course speaking of milliseconds difference, probably not very noticeable but cumulative savings can be achieved. reading an in-memory cache is a lot faster, reading the hosts file not quite as fast, and making a round trip to the pc's primary dns which may need passing to an upstream recursive primary icann dns server, and if those fail, to the secondary and so forth, is a lot slower. again, all is relative.

i see your test google was 50% faster than the 222 opendns, and 210% faster than your primary. if you've reset, how did it look now...

p.s. - i'm on a 6mb/s adsl line.

[Manny Carvalho]

I have reset but not measured it yet. It does feel faster with the Google servers. I'll measure it again later today and see what happens.

The best I can do on my DSL line is 1.5 mb/s. Even though it works nice, my line speed is the real bottleneck and I can't get better service. One of the benefits of living out in the middle of the woods.