Managing HOSTS file Ad-Blocking on Win10

Post date: 2019-04-16 03:18:45

I'm getting ready to set up a new Win10 computer, and I was wondering what was the best method for handling Ad-Blocking via HOSTS File these days.

On my old computer, I'm using HostMan, and it'd regularly give me out-of-memory errors. This may be because I was subscribed to a lot of different lists.

I also had issues where HOSTS file updates would fail because other processes also had the file open which would lock out any edits to the file. I had a separate file-unlocking utility, but often times, the other processes with the HOSTS file open could not be killed, and I would have to wait for them to let go of the file before HostMan could apply its update.

So, since I have a chance to start fresh, here are my questions:

1. Is HostMan still the best way to manage the blocking via HOSTS file under Win10, or is there a better utility these days?

2. Is there any way to prioritize HostMan or whatever other utility that is out there so that it can make its edits to update the file even if other processes are trying to access it (some combination of running the utility as an elevated-privileges special account and customized file permissions, perhaps)?

3. What lists should I subscribe to for optimal Ad-Blocking and malware protection?

4. I'm aware of Pi-Hole but I had been hoping to avoid off-computer solutions. I've heard that Pi-Hole's software can be run on Windows in a Docker container, but I'm not at all familiar with Docker, is the process especially complex, and is Docker free?

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