Host files

The trade-off with using a larger HOSTS file is between "security" and performance. If you are happy with the responsiveness in your system while using your larger HOSTS file, then use the larger file, within reason. Yes, if you simply combine the two files you mentioned, you are likely to have duplicate entries, but that problem can be resolved with a text editor that has the capability to remove duplicate entries. I use EditPad Pro to do this, but I'm sure there are other editors that can also do that.

 

The speed of using 0.0.0.0 over 127.0.0.0 is noticeable, that said 127.0.0.0 doesn't work if you don't have a network card enabled and can slow your system making a service using 99% CPU, but not many people disable network so for speed I found 127 worked better than 0 and that is why I stuck to it, would be easy for me to do a search and replace to update it, but I automated the addition of our extras to be applied to someonewhocares list, if you know for a fact yours makes the internet better I might go through and add them to ours, otherwise it might just break more sites than it improves, I have had to remove some that stopped ebay ads and google results from being able to open, would be nothing worse than a online purchase or other important process broken by the hosts file blocking it (which I have had happen when being to aggressive with it).


I usually only add the sites I use when they attempt redirects etc, safer than the alternative.

BTW the speed differences are not noticeable in windows 10 (doesn't cause CPU spike on fresh boot) if your hosts file is larger, they were VERY noticeable in XP (adding minutes to the high CPU usage on startup) and were improved in windows 7.