Does having a big hosts file slow down your network access at all?

MikeHunt79 · 12 Sep 2009 at 00:12

I recently found that spybot has made my hosts file so that my machine will not access nasty sites, here's a bit of it's handywork:

Code:

# Start of entries inserted by Spybot - Search & Destroy
127.0.0.1    www.007guard.com
127.0.0.1    007guard.com
127.0.0.1    008i.com
127.0.0.1    www.008k.com
127.0.0.1    008k.com
127.0.0.1    www.00hq.com
127.0.0.1    00hq.com
127.0.0.1    010402.com
127.0.0.1    www.032439.com
127.0.0.1    032439.com
127.0.0.1    www.0scan.com
127.0.0.1    0scan.com
127.0.0.1    1000gratisproben.com
127.0.0.1    www.1000gratisproben.com
127.0.0.1    1001namen.com
127.0.0.1    www.1001namen.com
127.0.0.1    www.100888290cs.com
127.0.0.1    100888290cs.com

Now, this is all well and good, but does this slow things up at all? My hosts file is now 11,358 lines long! :eek:

GhostlyPea · 12 Sep 2009 at 09:08

I doubt it. Hosts file is checked before DNS and it will be far faster to check a simple text document than send a request to a DNS server which will do the same thing

Obviously there gets a point when DNS would possibly be faster due to it's hierarchial design, but I'm not sure what that point would be. Only thing is once a site is located through DNS it is cached and the cache is also checked prior to DNS, so I guess it would depend how often each site is accessed

- Pea0n

Mattus · 12 Sep 2009 at 18:21

Pea0n said:
I doubt it. Hosts file is checked before DNS and it will be far faster to check a simple text document than send a request to a DNS server which will do the same thing

What about when the site isn't in the hosts file, though? (Seeing as only spam sites will be in it.) The hosts file will be checked for each new site, then the DNS server afterwards.

My guess would be that it slows things down a bit but not enough to notice.

GhostlyPea · 12 Sep 2009 at 18:40

Jesus, I totally miss-read the OP, must have been tired this morning >.< Just use something like no-script rather than that add-in

- Pea0n

MikeHunt79 · 12 Sep 2009 at 18:43

I already use no-script, I think I'm going to delete the entries from my hosts files and stop worrying about the speed difference.

I can't say I've noticed any difference while browsing, downloading and gaming tho.

s0ck · 13 Sep 2009 at 01:30

I used to have a similarly large hosts file.
Can't say I noticed a slow down...

platypus · 14 Sep 2009 at 20:26

I have 22,442 lines in my hosts file, never noticed any problems.