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How to access and update the hosts file on a Windows PC
A quick bit of background;
What is a hosts file?
The hosts file is a computer file used by an operating system to map hostnames to IP addresses. The hosts file is a plain text file, and is conventionally named "hosts". Basically when your browser looks for a web address it will normally look generally at the internet. However if you want to look on a specifc server and not the Internet, then you can do so by updating the hosts file.
Why would I want to update the hosts file?
When developing new websites it's sometimes impractical to develop under the live domain name so we make a domain available on just one server. Entering the domain and server address into your hosts file will enable you to access the website through any browser on that PC. A line in a hosts files looks like:
123.456.789.321 domain.name
How do I update my hosts file?
The easiest way to learn is to watch this video:
