portmaster Replacement for host file win 11

A couple of basic questions.

I built up quite a large extensive hosts file on Win 7, which amongst other things I used to deny various apps I was running from 'phoning home', unfortunately the hosts doesn't work on Win 11. Does Portmaster act in a similar way to the hosts file? If it does it it possible to import entries from the hosts file into Portmaster?

Does Portmaster interfere with Ublock. I'm using firefox.

Thanks.

Dec 06 '25 20:12 harryray33

You shouldn't use hosts file on Windows-11.

It simply doesn't provide any security, and the OS is already set to ignore several entries in the hosts file, relating to Windows/OS/updates etc. In addition it doesn’t block any sub-subdomains unless you list them.

Dec 11 '25 11:12 eabase

Thanks, I also use to use the host file to stop various programmes from 'phoning home', which proved quite effective. On Firefox, I use uBlock, but of course that's only good for blocking sites from the browser

I'm using my virus programme to do this, but it's a lot more hassle than just putting the entry into the host file.

Is there a good alternative to the host file?

Dec 11 '25 12:12 harryray33