Is there a way to redirect a web browser in windows using the hosts file to another website e.g. http://www.facebook.com becomes the boss’ homepage? I know how to point it back to localhost, but can you point it to another specific webpage? We’re planning an April fools’ prank on a colleague….

depends on how the network is set up. If you have corporate proxies then they will typically do the name resolution which will override anything you put in the hosts file. However, with a non-proxied connection it’s a simple case of adding to the hosts file like any other….

[IP address of bosses homepage] http://www.facebook.com

Well, I can make it go to 127.0.0.1, but as the boss’ page is hosted within our uni’s servers (it’s his staff profile), I guess it doesn’t have an IP address all to itself. So using the hosts file does work, just I can’t make it go to that page. Is there any way I can do that in the hosts file, or does it have to be the ‘root’ web page? just typing in the web address certainly didn’t…

So, is there a way?

You can’t do change it to a specific page in the hosts file, no, only to an IP address. You could set up a webserver whose homepage serves the specific page you want using a redirect, then point the hosts file at that new webserver, but it’s getting a tad complicated then

Yeah, I think I’ll just ‘break’ facebook for a while – that should do the trick!