Edit hosts file to avoid typos

MarcLister · 6 Nov 2009 at 23:00

Every so often I'll type 'fm' or 'gm' say for my Fastmail and Gmail into my browser but I'll accidentally press CTRL+ENTER and rather than Opera going to fastmail.fm or gmail.com I'll end up and www.fm.com or www.gm.com.

Now I know I can edit my hosts file so that if I end up doing the above and going to www.fm.com or www.gm.com etc that I can get myself redirected to fastmail.fm or gmail.com.

Problem is I don't really know what I should do, i.e. what I type and in what order. :confused:

Can anyone help me?

marc2003 · 6 Nov 2009 at 23:10

i use a handy feature called "bookmarks". they've been quite popular amongst various browsers for some time now. for regularly used sites, you might want to give them a try.

editing hosts files is for the translation of domain names to ip addresses so they are of no use to you in this situation.

so to address your problem, maybe look at using opendns as that has typo correction. not used it myself but it's listed on the features page here....

http://www.opendns.com/start/

MarcLister · 6 Nov 2009 at 23:19

Er I do use bookmarks. "fm" and "gm" in Opera translate to the shortcuts to fastmail and gmail in my bookmarks.

wij · 7 Nov 2009 at 00:24

If you use OpenDNS for your DNS servers I'm fairly sure that by registering for a free account with them you can enable type correction and things like shortcuts.

MarcLister · 7 Nov 2009 at 00:57

wij said:
If you use OpenDNS for your DNS servers I'm fairly sure that by registering for a free account with them you can enable type correction and things like shortcuts.

That's enabled but if I type fm it won't work. It is only if I type google.cmo say.

marc2003 · 7 Nov 2009 at 01:01

so you have a problem with opera keyboard shortcuts? or am i missing something? :confused:

MarcLister · 7 Nov 2009 at 01:10

I type 'fm' say to get fastmail loading up. Sometimes I press CTRL+ENTER which Opera makes into fm.com and not fm as in my bookmark.

Sin_Chase · 7 Nov 2009 at 02:23

windowsfolder\system32\drivers\etc

You wan the hosts file. Open it in wordpad or your editor of choice, copy the format of the entries already present.

For example to resolve fm.com to 123.123.123.123:

123.123.123.123 fm.com

Job done, be aware though - This might break some sites.

NathanE · 7 Nov 2009 at 12:42

If running Vista or W7 with UAC you will need to load up Notepad using the "Run as Administrator" option otherwise it won't let you save your changes to the Hosts file.

MarcLister · 7 Nov 2009 at 14:17

Ah yes. Cheers Nathan.