But this User Tip is not about individual rights, it is about undoing hacks that may be making your Mac very slow. In some situations, these hacks can be perfectly legal. Someone using it in this fashion might have 23 entries in the file. This is not a valid use of the /etc/hosts file. Many expensive software packages, primarily Adobe and Microsoft products, will 'phone home' to their corporate offices to verify that the software being used on someone's Mac is a valid and properly licensed version of the software. Someone using it in this fashion might have 2000 entries in the file. You will have to ask the people who are pushing that list. What is 'undesireable' you ask? Good question. There are web sites promoting the use of /etc/hosts to block certain 'undesireable' websites by redirecting them to a non-functional server. Someone using it in this fashion might have 5 entries in the file. This is what the /etc/hosts file was designed to do. Then, when it is perfect, they can publish it to the real server for everyone else to see. No one on the internet will see the version of the site under development.

This allows them to develop a web site for and test it while running on their Mac. Developers can add entries like that redirect back to localhost. Developing internet services on your Mac.There are three primary reasons for modifying this file: This file provides a way to redirect internet domain name lookups. The majority of complaints about slow Macs also include a hacked hosts file.

Adobe host file mac