WINDOWS XP LOCK OUT UNWANTED WEB SITES
There are millions and millions of Web pages on the Internet. So many, in fact, that I doubt anybody really has an exact count. Well, that's all find and good, but we all know that there are Web sites out there that spell trouble, especially for our kids. So what can you do to lock out a Web site your kids are playing on, a site that you don't approve of? That's easy. You edit the Windows XP host file and lock that site out.
Here's how. Click on Start, then on My Computer, and then right-click on your hard drive, usually drive C:. Click on Explore to open the drive, and then drill down to the file C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts Double-click on the Hosts file to open it. If Windows tells you it can't open the file, click on Select the Program from a list, and then click on Notepad and click OK. At the bottom of the Hosts file you'll see the line 127.0.0.1 localhost. To lock out a Web site, just place your cursor at the end of that line, press the Enter key to create a new line, and on the new line type 127.0.0.1, press the Tab key, and finally, enter the Web page you want to block.
For example, your new line might look like this. 127.0.0.1 www. Junk. Com Click on File at the top of the Notepad window and then click Save. Now you can exit out. When the entry (example) is requested, your computer will think 127.0.0.1 www. Junk. Com is the location of the file. When this file is not located it skips onto the next file, so that the bad web site is blocked from loading the banner, cookie, or even some dangerous or unscrupulous Java script file.