Hosts File Editor is an Open Source desktop application that allows for easy editing of the hosts file in Windows operating systems.
The Host file is used to map domain names to IP addresses. For example, we can redirect a URL like www.luisllamas.es to an IP on our local network.
This is very useful during web development stages, because we can have our application hosted on a test server, or even locally, and redirect calls to the “real” URL to our application in development.
Editing the Host file “by hand” is not complicated. But if we have to do it frequently, it is not very practical, because we need to open the editor with administrator permissions, go to the path where it is saved, modify it, etc.
This is where Hosts File Editor comes into play. It is a very simple and lightweight tool, but very useful for those of us who need to edit the hosts file frequently.
How to use Host File Editor
Hosts File Editor has a very simple and intuitive graphical user interface. We simply have a list in table format, which displays the information contained in our Host file.
The most useful function is that we can activate or deactivate a remapping of the Host file simply by “clicking” on the checkbox of each of the rows.
With this, we will be commenting or uncommenting the equivalent line of the Host file.
Host File Editor also allows filtering and searching for information by different criteria, such as domain name or IP address. This allows us to quickly find the necessary information and facilitates the editing of the file.
In addition, we can create backups of the hosts file before making any changes, so that we ensure that we have a backup, and can make changes with the security of not “messing up”.
It has support for IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. It also allows us to add a comment to each of the mappings, for example, to identify the function of each of them.
Hosts File Editor is a simple but very useful tool for Web developers on the Windows operating system. It is available both as an installable application and as a portable one.
It is Open Source, and all the documentation and project code is available on the project’s website https://hostsfileeditor.com/