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There's plenty of ad blocking, spyware blocking, ransomware blocking, etc. software that absolutely uses the hosts file to blackhole requests. Much of it is fr

There's plenty of ad blocking, spyware blocking, ransomware blocking, etc. software that absolutely uses the hosts file to blackhole requests. Much of it is free and intended for home computer use.

greglindahl 8y ago
And what market share do they have? None of my non-techie relatives or friends who've asked me to look at their machines run that kind of software.
- mortenlarsen 8y ago
  Only the use case with the largest market share matters? That kind of thinking, really irks me.
  - greglindahl 8y ago
    No, I don't think like that. It does bother me when Firefox introduces a feature which covers up a huge hole in TLS, and they get a large number of complaints on HN.
    - vetinari 8y ago
      Of course it gets large number of complains, when it creates more problems than it solves, and it is papered over "but mainstream users do not need that". Mainstream users do not need most software ever made.
      - greglindahl 8y ago
        Did you see someone in this discussion suggesting "but mainstream users do not need that"? I just checked again and I don't see anyone making that suggestion.
        vetinari 8y ago
        It is paraphrased. The argument is, that it improves things for the mythical naive mainstream user, and for where it break things, well they are minority anyway.
        greglindahl 8y ago
        I didn't see anyone making that argument, either. Are you trying to summarize what I said? If so, that's not what I said. I'd love to have a discussion about these issues, but it's not going to happen if everyone's talking past each other, plus random downvotes.
caf 8y ago
OK, but software like that can easily include an internal DOH proxy (or just turn off DOH in Firefox).
notatoad 8y ago
Regular users use a browser extension like ublock or Adblock to block ads. Not improving DNS security for the sake of a few users obscure Adblock mechanism would be pretty silly.
- da_chicken 8y ago
  Regular users also use Norton, McAfee, and other vendor Internet security suites. Some of those will also use the hosts file.

There's plenty of ad blocking, spyware blocking, ransomware blocking, etc. software that absolutely uses the hosts file to blackhole requests. Much of it is free and intended for home computer use.

greglindahl 8y ago

And what market share do they have? None of my non-techie relatives or friends who've asked me to look at their machines run that kind of software.

mortenlarsen 8y ago
Only the use case with the largest market share matters? That kind of thinking, really irks me.
- greglindahl 8y ago
  No, I don't think like that. It does bother me when Firefox introduces a feature which covers up a huge hole in TLS, and they get a large number of complaints on HN.
  - vetinari 8y ago
    Of course it gets large number of complains, when it creates more problems than it solves, and it is papered over "but mainstream users do not need that". Mainstream users do not need most software ever made.
    - greglindahl 8y ago
      Did you see someone in this discussion suggesting "but mainstream users do not need that"? I just checked again and I don't see anyone making that suggestion.
      - vetinari 8y ago
        It is paraphrased. The argument is, that it improves things for the mythical naive mainstream user, and for where it break things, well they are minority anyway.
        greglindahl 8y ago
        I didn't see anyone making that argument, either. Are you trying to summarize what I said? If so, that's not what I said. I'd love to have a discussion about these issues, but it's not going to happen if everyone's talking past each other, plus random downvotes.

caf 8y ago

OK, but software like that can easily include an internal DOH proxy (or just turn off DOH in Firefox).

notatoad 8y ago

Regular users use a browser extension like ublock or Adblock to block ads. Not improving DNS security for the sake of a few users obscure Adblock mechanism would be pretty silly.

da_chicken 8y ago
Regular users also use Norton, McAfee, and other vendor Internet security suites. Some of those will also use the hosts file.