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StevenBlack
hosts
Python2013ā€“2026
StevenBlack / hosts

hosts

šŸ”’ Consolidating and extending hosts files from several well-curated sources. Optionally pick extensions for porn, social media, and other categories.

Security & PrivacyCreative & MediaCommunication & Social
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
168Distinct people
244Mentions
5Explicit recommenders
31.5KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

šŸ”’ Consolidating and extending hosts files from several well-curated sources. Optionally pick extensions for porn, social media, and other categories.

GitHub

Where it is used

The last source check was inconclusive. This does not establish whether a product uses it.

What people are saying

I am in the exact same boat. And lately it's the same sort of shit... My dad will get a text message on Facebook from a "friend" (usually a dead friend) and it'll say somethingā€¦

dbg31415 used a recommendation phrase. 6 indexed comments match. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8ā€“Nov 15 UTC Ā· Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 9:01:12 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year244 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2013-02-22 16:12:14 UTC to 2026-10-07 09:41:56 UTC.

0102030402013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments20132014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 2 submissions, 2 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 38 mentions; 2 submissions, 36 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 18 mentions; 2 submissions, 16 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 28 mentions; 1 submissions, 27 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 41 mentions; 2 submissions, 39 comments20192020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 27 mentions; 2 submissions, 25 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 21 mentions; 2 submissions, 19 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 19 mentions; 4 submissions, 15 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 22 mentions; 3 submissions, 19 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 7 mentions; 0 submissions, 7 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 11 mentions; 0 submissions, 11 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 0 submissions, 6 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repositoryā€™s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20132013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC422
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC38236
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC18216
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC28127
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC41239
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC27225
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC21219
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC19415
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC22319
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC707
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC11011
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC606

What Hacker News says

21 sources
News-DogĀ·Nov 9, 2021Submission

Ask HN: Hosts File ā€“ Still Relevant?

My system network DNS is set to 1.1.1.2,1.0.0.2 (cloudflare Malware filtered DNS: https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-1-1-1-1-for-families/) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1.1.1.1) I would like you thoughts on using a system hosts file (/etc/hosts) such as: https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts (Of course I append my existing hosts file to the head of the updated hosts file) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_(file) ) What are the pros & cons? I mainly use firefox with DNS over HTTPS enabled; (My ISP sells my DNS data to G00gle) and use: https://security.cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query (cloudflare Malware filtered DNS) for my DNS lookups with 'network.trr.bootstrapAddress' set to: 1.1.1.2 as fallback, and 'network.trr.mode' set to '3' (only use DNS over HTTPS) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_over_HTTPS) As using DNS over HTTPS negate
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s system hosts lookup, I use uBlock-Origin: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin) And import a host file combo from: https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts into 'Filter lists' of uBlock-Origin. Any Thoughts?
6 points Ā· Open discussion
irthomasthomasĀ·Jul 27, 2021
This is a refreshingly wholesome startup. Well done! I am really interested in the social media blocking. I have been quitting social media for 5 or 6 years now. The hardest for me was Quora, I think. I don't know why, they where like the mafia: "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in" What worked for me was blocking them on the router and the hosts files[0]. This meant there where two steps to unlocking a blocked site. And for extra friction I used a long router password and don't save it. The longer it takes you to reach the thing, the more opportunity to change your mind. The good news is that social media addiction is relatively quick and painless to cure. I stopped missing them after about a week. And there are a lot of positive outcomes from quitting this stuff (especially for doomscrollers and dopamine junkies ;) I
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have been quitting a lot of stuff recently like sugar, sweeteners, coffee, carbs and processed food! And for a little while it's rough. Quitting anything will be rough for at least a few days. But as you strip away more sources of artificial dopamine stimulation, the body compensates, or maybe you just become more sensitive to it. Real life starts to give you some of that dopamine buzz that you where chasing online (or in a can of diet soda!) But but now I start to feel little dopamine kicks whenever I take some small positive action like doing some exercise or fasting, or walking past the junk food. [0] crowd sourced hosts files to block ads, social-media and porn: https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
In Launch HN: Atmana (YC S21) ā€“ An app to help cut down on compulsive porn usage
grae_QEDĀ·Jul 26, 2021
>It's insanely hard to avoid that main stream media content It's very easy. I modify my hosts file with lists such as Steven Blacks [1] or the EnergizedProtection host lists [2] which are both continuously updated files containing know ad server URL's and whatnot. I can honestly say that I haven't seen an ad in years, let alone any form of divisive content. But I also might just not visit many websites where they show that stuff. The best solution to that is to avoid those sites if possible. [1] https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts [2] https://github.com/EnergizedProtection/block
In Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming
tgragnatoĀ·Jun 27, 2021
The situation is a little better compared to Windows, but it's not perfect. I always disable telemetry, but iphonesubmissions.apple.com:443, radarsubmissions.apple.com:443 and securemetrics.apple.com:443 are still contacted. People messing with ocsp.apple.com:80 (https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts/issues/1460) also need to be aware of ocsp2.apple.com:443. The iAdSDK setting is somewhat respected, but all the Siri subdomains are pinged even if Siri is turned off.
In Windows 11, Amazon, and Uncomfortable Questions
axismundiĀ·Jun 17, 2021
Use /etc/hosts based blocking, e.g. https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts This way you become mostly invisible to the ad and malware industry, no matter which browser you use. Have JavaScript toggle next to address bar and keep JavaScript off by default. Most cookie banners will disappear. Use Reader mode for daily news browsing. Most things will disappear except for main content. And it makes Internet less addictive. The difference between swimming and drowning is subtle - flailing your limbs frantically vs relaxed movement. To many complex solutions will make us drown. Consider swimming instead :)
In New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete
LargoLasskhyfvĀ·Jun 6, 2021
Depending on your used adblock, I'd guess it is the bottleneck. Plugins running in the browser are not made for this. If you are using browser plugin-based adblocking, try to disable that temporarily for testing, and exchange it with some host-based solution, for instance this https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts no matter which OS your are on. Then see if it feels faster. If you are already doing it this way, forget what I wrote :-)
In The modern web on a slow connection (2017)
BooligooshĀ·Apr 16, 2021
I assume you're referring to the fact that they don't respect the Do Not Track header? In my opinion this is fine because they don't 'track' visitors around the web as such, respecting the original intent of this DNT option. I wrote a bit about this [here](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts/issues/1346#issuecommen...), pasted below: > I feel like a lot of this comes down to what "track" means, and what I as an average user am expecting when I enable "do not track". > Personally, I feel like "track" means following me across multiple websites, or keeping a detailed record of my individual browsing habits on an individual site. > If you think about what "tracking" means in real life, it means constantly following someone/something or monitoring it. If someone had one of those little infrared foot traffic counter things at the door to thei
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r shop, I wouldn't say they're tracking me as an individual. They're tracking how much foot traffic they get, but they're not tracking me. > Both Plausible and Fathom are just like this. They don't keep the same user identifiers for more than 24h, they just take an anonymous count when you walk in the door to a site (along with a few other anonymous things like referrer). In short, as a user, I don't feel like my individual activity is being tracked to create a profile of my browsing, I just feel like the website is counting me when I walk in the door. They're tracking their visit stats, but they're not tracking ME. > As cause enabling DNT, what I'm saying and expecting is "do not track ME". It's fine to track your usage stats, but don't track ME and build a profile of ME. So I would not expect services like Plausible and Fathom to do anything about this header, since they're not tracking me as an individual in the first place.
In How to fight back against Google FLoC

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