This simple GUI allows you to easily update your /etc/hosts file to one of four consolidated hosts files from StevenBlack/hosts.

These consolidated hosts files allow you to block websites from various categories such as Ads, Porn, Gambling, Social, and Fake News.

Host Minder has them setup into four Protection Levels.

• Low
  • Ads / Porn
• Medium
  • Ads / Porn / Gambling
• High
  • Ads / Porn / Gambling / Social
• Max
  • Ads / Porn / Gambling / Social / Fake News

When you enable Host Minder your existing /etc/hosts entries are added to the downloaded hosts file inside a special section.

Example:

# Custom host records are listed here.
127.0.0.1	localhost
127.0.1.1	your-laptop
::1	localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
# End of custom host records.

If you need to add additional entries simply add them to this section between # Custom host records are listed here. and # End of custom host records..

If you decide to turn off Host Minder the entries in this section will be used to create your /etc/hosts file.

All protection levels also include enabling Google Safe Search.

Host Minder automatically updates your selected Protection Level once a week.

Note: Auto update is only available when Host Minder is installed to your system.

Host Minder is available in the UbuntuCE Repo

Download the latest deb package from https://github.com/jeremehancock/hostminder/tree/main/deb.

In a terminal run the following from the directory where the deb package was downloaded.

sudo dpkg -i hostminder_x.x.x_all.deb

Replace x.x.x with the latest version.

Host Minder should now be available in your applications menu.

In a terminal run the following.

git clone https://github.com/jeremehancock/hostminder.git

cd hostminder

./hostminder.sh

All code is provided as-is without any warranty. This tool will download and setup a new hosts file. It will be making changes to your system and should be USED AT YOUR OWN RISK!