Windows bypass hosts

In this article, we will explain how to setup that. There are multiple ways you can bypass or exempt website addresses from using proxy. Remember that Windows will exclude the local website addresses like intranet or localhost from proxy when you enable the corresponding check box. However it will not work depending on the URL format.

Therefore, we recommend you to add the local addresses in the exception list for correct usage. Use semicolon to separate each address you want to exclude. However, Firefox has standalone browser settings that allow you to add proxy and exceptions within the browser.

Though proxies are helpful, ensure to use reliable servers to avoid security problems. Dave, great find! People are hot and fired up about this on both sides of the issue, with lots of the arguments on both sides being valid. My take? In most instances, the instituted changes helps make Windows more secure by making it less likely that malware can manipulate Microsoft software update services. Yes, it should have been documented. From the packet capture, we want to see if A There's a DNS request going out, and if so, what name is it requesting.

If we don't see either of the above despite you flushing your cache, then it's likely that the name is being pulled from either hosts or lmhosts. Some people on web forums claim that creating a new hosts file and restarting the DNS client service fixes the problem, but I'm not sure why that would work if you've already tried rebooting. Microsoft has written dnsapi. For example, if I add the following entry, Windows skips it and resolves both hostnames in the entry using DNS:. When using the full DNS name your browser is attempting to go through your proxy server - clicky for IE.

The hosts file or name resolution order is nothing to do with this problem, and the festering sore on the backside of humanity that is the hosts file should be taken out back and noisily shot. This appears to be the actual cause. Leave it to Microsoft to suddenly and without warning ignore a 25 year old convention.

Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. What can cause a DNS lookup to ignore a hosts file entry? Ask Question. Asked 12 years, 1 month ago. Active 10 years ago. So everyone on computer B is stuck without Google until someone updates the hosts file. When that person does update the hosts file, they add another entry to handle Google with the www subdomain.

Now everyone on computer B is taken to the correct website whether they visit google. And everyone on computer A can only visit google. If you're thinking that someone should have just made a central repository to map all IP addresses with all hostnames, that's exactly what happened. Early on, a central hosts file was manually maintained and shared by the Stanford Research Institute.

This system lead to the invention of domains and top level domains like. In the end, the humble hosts file and innovators like Elizabeth J. Feinler lead to the invention of the Domain Name System still in use today.

First, open Notepad as an administrator by pressing the Windows key, typing in "notepad", and clicking "Run as administrator":.

You won't be able to see any files in this directory because they aren't text documents. To change the file type, click on the dropdown in the bottom right of the Open menu and click on "All Files":. Note that everything is commented out with characters, meaning that nothing is actually being read from the hosts file. Modern versions of Windows include a sort of DNS system already, so if you visit localhost it'll automatically redirect you to If you're doing some local development and are having problems with localhost, you can just remove the comments from your hosts file:.

Then, open PowerShell by pressing the Windows key, searching for "powershell", and clicking "Run as Administrator":. After that, you should be able to visit localhost in your browser and see whatever you're hacking on.

If you're still having issues, try closing your browser completely, then open a new browser window and try again. Even though hosts files have fallen out of favor with newer systems like DNS, they still work for legacy reasons. And hackers have definitely taken advantage of this in the past. What they would do is point a common website like google.

This IP address could serve a site that looks just like Google's, but is actually trying to steal your sensitive information.