Hi,
I use portable firefox with my flash disk and I need specific hosts file. I cant change hosts file which is on computers. (some of them are public computers and some of them is restricted)
is that possible something like tahat - to start firefox:
firefox.exe /extdns=c:\myhost.dns
thanks.
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The hosts file is OS-level, not browser level.
Hosts files aren't really required as you could easily accomplish this with direct IP access or, if it's dynamic, a service like dyndns.org.
If you're trying to use it to block ads or malware, there are far better ways to accomplish that.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I don't think we can give more than a general answer to your question unless we know how you are using the hosts file.
One option that comes to mind might be to configure FF to use a proxy on an external machine you control, and tell FF to send DNS queries through the proxy. (Some proxy settings still use your local DNS unless you specifically ask for them to be sent, see network.proxy.socks_remote_dns.)
I suppose if you had a virtualized environment of some sort (e.g. boot from a LiveCD) you could configure your own hosts and DNS, but that can be as difficult as getting permission to tweak the hosts file.
Those are about the only ways I know of that let you set up your own hosts file and DNS configuration separate from the machine you are running on.
Maybe you could create a FF plugin that would do what you want? I can see where it might be handy to be able to do it.
MC
Hi, Thx for your answers.
if I can use different DNS server from my proxyserver it will be ok but I cant do that. is that possible, using a different proxy fr only DNS?
I'm interested in someting similar to this... How can FireFox portable be configured to do the following?
I want to use Google DNS and the MVPS.org hosts file.
https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
My reasons are that I don't want to use any local DNS and while surfing I don't want any sort of network traffic created to any type of ad sites or anything unintended.
I also have some FireFox add-ons running such as No-Script.
However, assume I will not have admin access to the computer so changing the DNS and hosts file on the operating system level is not an option.
Also, you mentioned writing a FF plugin to do this. I didn't think about that. If a simple plugin can be created I'm willing to try that as well. But first I want to know if this functionality is already in FF portable
Like all browser (that I know of) Firefox uses the operating system's DNS.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thank you. That answers my question. Keeping in mind your personal signature file, it looks like either I wait for someone to become awesome or I just become awesome myself. Otherwise, I just have to deal with whatever DNS is configured on the PC I'm plugged in to...