Very important : your hosts file can be hacked and modified

There is a way for unhonnest webmasters to add popups and other nasty stuff to almost every page you visit. With the use of an exploit they can hack your computer files and modifiy a very important one :

    - Windows 98: c:\windows\hosts
    - Windows 2000: c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
    - Windows XP: c:\windows\system32\drivers\hosts

By editing this file they can steal traffic from any site they want, they can block your access to any site, or they can add advertising (popup(s), dialers) to them. To hack your hosts file cheaters only have to have you visit their page, be it a TGP or simply a thumbnailed gallery! You don't have to click anywhere on the page, you don't have to install anything, it is a very malicious hack; you will not even notice that a flaw in your computer settings has just been exploited...

Open your hosts file (it has no extention) with notepad. It should contain only this line :

127.0.0.1 localhost

If you see other domain names below it, it has been changed illegally. Just delete everything but 127.0.0.1 localhost. Save the file and close it, and you should be fine again. If you are unsure, you can simply delete the file from your hard drive, it will be ok. I have heard that making your file read-only can protect you, but I am unsure.