Question: DNS Cache disabling.

[Syrubun]

I've been using this list for awhile and only just now noticed the .bat to disable the cache service.

Does this make it so websites block instantly without having to wait 10+ minutes for it to update any time a change in hosts or connection changes? Windows had made the cache instant but following an update it went back to being slow, if I run the disabler will my PC work fine?

Also if you have an m.2 SSD will the cache load instantly even with the service enabled?

[welcome]

Hello! Thank you for opening your first issue in this repo. It’s people like you who make these host files better!

[icedterminal]

Quote myself from reddit:

You shouldn't modify or replace the hosts file directly with such a large one. Windows has problems processing it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsHelp/comments/116qjca/_/

I actively participate in Windows help subs and this particular use case pops up often and with an array of problems people experience. There are also multiple issues in this repo regarding Windows acting up. See here: #2138 #2094 #2064 #2039 - some have potential workarounds you may try.

I highly encourage you to find a way to use this upstream with PiHole or similar. It's really easy to set up and is inexpensive to do with a raspberry pi board. Every device can benefit, not just your computer.

[StevenBlack]

Thank you for your question @Lagomorpheus.

As someone once said, there are two problems in computer science:

1. Naming things
2. Cache invalidation
3. Off-by-one errors 😄

Within the bat file, this line...

ipconfig /flushdns

flushes DNS cache, so the new hosts file takes immediate effect, yes.

Without this immediate and full cache invalidation, ad-hoc cache invalidation, and the extent of that, is hard to determine or predict.

With Windows I find the hosts file size problems depend on which version of Windows is running, how much RAM is onboard, DNS configuration, and potentially other settings incoherently and varyingly buried in Windows config dialogs. If Windows gets slow suddenly, it might be related to the hosts file and, then again, it might not.

@icedterminal enumerates some seemingly related issues here.

[StevenBlack]

Closing!