"lrichar3" <guest@unknown-email.com> wrote in message
news:f1861a1c482e0890153697178b33583f@nntp-gateway.com...<span style="color:blue">
>
> I need to block one website from coming up, and all online research has
> indicated that the hosts file is the best way to do this. Is there
> another way (without costly downloads) that you can suggest?
></span>
You have it on Vista with the Vista FW. By using the Advanced FW features,
one can set one rule to stop all outbound traffic. One can then set
outbound rules for the approved sites to go to, or in your case stop
outbound to one site, by IP.
I would do the same thing with XP by downloading one of the free FW(s).
You can also use IPsec which is on Vista for sure and on XP Pro to stop
outbound traffic to an IP or to a
www.whaterver.com. I don't know about XP
home as I have never used it.
http://www.rawcomputing.co.uk/vistasecurity2a.html
http://www.petri.co.il/block_ping_traffic_with_ipsec.htm
http://www.analogx.com/CONTENTS/articles/ipsec.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813878
Actually, I just implemented the AnalogX IPsec on Vista and XP, which gave
me a foundation on how to make rules manually and implement them within the
current rules.
If you want to what the IP is to the site at the time of connection to it,
then use Currports (free) to see that or you can ping the www site.