1. *Anything* besides AOL. Well, not really "anything" since there are a few
others out there that are almost as bad, but really, AOL sucks BIG time!

2. Any dial-up (DUN) these days is going to crawl, even slower than it used
to. Websites are loaded with a lot more than they used to be when DUN was
king, and DUN providers don't devote the resources to their servers that
they used to. I *strongly* advise that you upgrade to DSL. The cost might be
as low as $16/month. Who's your telephone provider and do you live in a
populated area (not some rural location)?

3. At DUN speeds, the HOSTS file isn't going to be causing any problems.
Yes, it causes a barely noticeable slowdown on fast connections with older
machines, but that's something I consider a fair trade-off considering the
protection it offers. The HOSTS file is a redirect file. It was originally
used to make getting around a local network easier (think big business).
Instead of remembering long IP addresses (like 192.168.14.310) or
\\Servername\Computername\sharedfolder, one could simply type in "mikesdocs"
and an entry in the HOSTS file would translate that to the proper address.
These days, we use it to redirect known malicious sites to an address that
is guaranteed to fail on most machines -- your own computer, aka localhost,
aka127.0.0.1. Unless you have an internet server installed on your machine,
that address produces an error page instead of allowing your browser to
download whatever is coming from that site. Since the bulk of the download
from commercial sites is advertising, and the HOSTS file redirects those to
an error page (which is on your own machine and takes little time to load),
the HOSTS file is saving you a TON of time when you go to commercial sites
(or to AOL using your WalMart account, which is almost certainly loaded with
its own advertising.)

To properly use the HOSTS file in this manner, you need to periodically
update it from some site that manages a HOSTS file, adding malicious or
wasteful addresses as they become known to the manager. We MVPs have one
such site at http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm. One MVP, George
Geyde, has developed a program to update the HOSTS file for you. Get it
he http://dundats.mvps.org/Software/Index.htm (at bottom of page.) But
I'm betting that since you already have an active HOSTS file, and you've
found your way here, that your daughter has already installed this program.
Once you've installed the program, or if you already have it installed,
remember to run it every week or two. Once you've graduated to DSL or other
broadband, come back and I'll give you some tricks to automate it. Don't
want to do that until you're no longer on Dial-up.

As for making your system run faster, I suggest you start with the links in
my signature. Then come on back with your new questions and we'll proceed
from there. Your internet browsing speed has nothing to do with the HOSTS
file and everything to do with needing to tune up your system (and getting
broadband, of course.)

--

Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm
http://grystmill.com/articles/security.htm

"Joe T" wrote in message
...
About 6 months ago my daughter forced me to stop being a dinosaur when she
moved her family to Florida. (I don't even own a cell phone) She gave me
her
old Win98SE computer after she "cleaned it" when she got a new one. I am
using Wal-Mart dial up ($9.94/mo. Ok, I'm cheap she says, It's really AOL
shell but with Wal-Mart branding). 520 mb ram she says, 120gb drive,
(70%free space), all the usual ad stoping/spyware programs and AVG Free
virus
stuff.
It's slow on loading up pages. Real slooow. I can go to the kitchen and
pour
a cup of coffee and return and it's still loading. A young neighbor said
it's
probably the Hosts file. He explained and I kind of understand the
principle.
I looked at the host file and there is a boat load of sites there.
1. Doesn't this slow down the web browsing if it has to look for these
sites
first? 2. What would happen if I deleted these? 3. Can I set it up so it
doesn't have to download pictures? 4. Would that be faster?
Be kind, I'm an emerging Rip Van Winkle coming out of a 30 yr sleep. Lot
of
catching up to do.