Many times we want to change the hosts file of our OS X system, but before explaining how to change those addresses we are going to explain what that file is: the hosts file is where the system stores the correspondence between domain names on the internet and addresses IP.
When there were no DNS servers, this file was in charge of combining IP addresses and domain names. Today there are DNS servers that solve this problem, but what would happen if, for example, we want to block access on a computer, since it is in this file where we can execute the action.
In OS X we can change the hosts file in a very simple way, which is to use the Terminal. Using the following command:
sudo pico /private/etc/hosts
We can access it and modify the addresses that we want to block at will.
It is not a very difficult command to remember but there is an easier way to make these changes if there are so many problems. Well, OS X users are in luck and it is that using the HOSTS application we can perform the same actions as if we did it from our terminal.
Hosts is an application that is installed within the System Preferences panel, and that allows us to edit the hosts file. There we can put the IP, server name (Hostname) and select as active or not active the IP address entered.
If you want to download the application we leave you the download link from here