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HostName Commander is a software utility that helps you manage the relationships between the host names and the IP addresses of the computers.

If you are a web developer

If you develop complex, interactive web sites, you probably design them on your local development server, before uploading the web pages and scripts to the production server. For example, if the domain name of your web site is www.mycoolsite.com, then during the development phase you want the host name www.mycoolsite.com to point to your development server (or to your own computer, if you don't have a separate development server). When the development is finished and the site goes live, you want the name www.mycoolsite.com to point to your production server, to make you able to test the live web site and see it just like the rest of the world does. When developing and maintaining a non-trivial web site, you are probably switching back and forth between the development and productions servers may times. If you do that by manually editing the Windows HOSTS files, you have probably wondered many times, there should be a better way of doing it, haven't you?

As a matter of fact, there IS a better (as in faster and more efficient) way of managing your host names, and this is what HostName Commander is all about. With HostName Commander you are be able to switch the server your web site name points to with just a couple of clicks of the mouse, any time of the day or night, and see the result immediately (well, almost immediately). When you need to test the web site on the development server, you would use HostName Commander to make the host name www.mycoolsite.com to resolve to the IP address of your development server (such as 127.0.0.1, if it's your own computer, or something like 192.168.0.5, if the development server is on your LAN). When you no longer want the host name of your site to resolve to the development server, HostName Commander would let the DNS server resolve it to the IP address of the production server.

If you tried to manage the host names manually before, you know that the web browser cache is often causes annoying problems when you switch the host name from one server to another: even when you make the host name to point to a new server, the web browser keeps displaying the pages from the cache that it previously downloaded from the old server. To solve this problem, you would need to manually open the web browser cache and clean or empty it after each change to the host name. With HostName Commander this problem is no longer a problem: it can clean up the browser cache for you automatically after each change from the development to production server (and back), removing from the cache only the pages which belong to the web site affected, and leaving the rest of the browser cache intact.

HostName Commander comes especially handy when you develop a large number of different web sites for different clients. HostName Commander lets you see and control all host names of the web sites you manage using the convenient and straightforward user interface, that lets you manipulate the host names of your web sites quickly and easily.

If you want to block certain web sites

The ability of HostName Commander to point web site names to arbitrary IP addresses makes you able to stop users of your computer from viewing the unwanted web sites, by mapping their host names to the invalid IP addresses.

For example, if your child is working on a term paper about the US government, you don't want him or her to accidentally type into the web browser the address whitehouse.com and end up at an infamous adult web site, instead of the web site devoted to the home of the US President (which correct address is whitehouse.gov).

With HostName Commander, you can assign some invalid IP address (such as 127.0.0.1) to the host names whitehouse.com and www.whitehouse.com, and that will make the web browser to display the Web site not found or a similar error message, when trying to see the contents of the blocked web site.

Even better, you can determine the actual IP address of the whitehouse.gov server, and assign whitehouse.com and www.whitehouse.com to that address, too. This way, no matter which address your child has entered into the browser, both whitehouse.gov and whitehouse.com will take him or her to the US President's home web site.

If you want to block third-party web ads

You can use the ability of HostName Commander to point web site names to arbitrary IP addresses to block the third-party web advertisements from being displayed on the web pages or in the popup windows while you are browsing the Internet.

A third-party ad is an image that is loaded by a web site from a separate server, with a host name different from the host name of the main web server. For instance, many web advertisements come from the adserver.com web site. If you use HostName Commander to point the name adserver.com to some invalid IP address (such as 127.0.0.1), the web browser will not be able to connect to adserver.com, and that in turn will make it unable to download the advertising images from that server. As a result, the blank image placeholders will be displayed on the web pages instead of the actual advertisements. Since the main contents of a web site is loaded from a server with a different host name (such as www.cnn.com or www.news.com), the main content of the web pages will not be affected by the blocking of the adserver.com site.

(Of course, this method of blocking web ads works only if the main content and the ad images on a particular web page are served from different servers. If a particular web page displays ads from the same server as its main content, you cannot block the ads, because if you were to assign an invalid IP address to the server's host name, that would stop the delivering of the main content of the web site, too. If the sites you visit most display ads from their own servers, use the ad-blocking software specifically designed to filter web content and block web ads it contains.)

To completely uninstall HostName Commander, it's not enough to simply delete its program files from the installation folder. To completely remove HostName Commander from your computer, follow the instructions below.

IMPORTANT: If your computer is configured for several user accounts, login as the same user as the user you were logged in when you installed HostName Commander. If you use Windows XP Fast User Switching, log off from all other accounts before trying to uninstall HostName Commander.

Automatic removal

Method 1. Click on the Start button at the bottom of your screen, choose Programs - HostName Commander - Uninstall from the menu, and follow the instructions.

Method 2. Open Windows Control Panel, open the Add/Remove Programs item and use it to uninstall HostName Commander.

Manual removal

Follow these steps to manually remove HostName Commander from your computer:

a. With Windows Explorer, delete the folder where you have installed HostName Commander (confirm that you want to delete the files that that folder contains, if prompted);

b. With Windows Explorer, delete the shortcuts to HostName Commander files, if any, from your personal Start Menu, Start - Programs menu, Desktop, and from the Quick Launch toolbar (refer to Windows Help for more information about these objects of Windows user interface);

c. With Registry Editor, delete the following keys, if any:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinAbility\HostName Commander

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WinAbility\HostName Commander

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HostName Commander

HostName Commander is NOT free or public domain software. It is Try Before You Buy software. This means that you may use the program for a total of 30 days (not necessarily all in a row) to evaluate it, and determine whether HostName Commander meets your needs. At the end of this trial period, you must either purchase a license for continued use of the program, or discontinue using HostName Commander. For the complete text of the evaluation use license, refer to file License.txt that is installed along with other files of HostName Commander.

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Evaluation copies of our products are 100% functional: there is NO functional difference between the evaluation and licensed versions of this software, except for the Welcome screen displayed in the evaluation mode at startup, and/or for the registration reminders, displayed by the program after the evaluation period has ended:

We make the evaluation versions this way so you can have a real look at them to decide whether or not they fit your needs. To use the software beyond the evaluation period, you must purchase a license for continued use. Please refer to the file License.txt installed along with other files of HostName Commander into its installation folder for the complete description of the evaluation and continued use terms.

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We accept all major credit cards, and we also offer many other payment options: USPS and International Money Orders, American Express Money Orders, wire and bank transfers, WesternUnion and MoneyGram transfers, and more.

Simply visit one of our web sites listed below, click on the Purchase or Buy Now link, and it will take you directly to our secure online store, where you can see the latest pricing and discount information, our money-back guarantee, privacy policy, and other related information:

We provide free upgrades to the updated versions of the same product that we may release within one year from the date of your purchase. For example, if you have purchased your license in March 2010, you may use that license key for all updated versions of the same product that we may release during the next year, up to March 2011 (both minor and major upgrades are covered by this offer). In other words, within one year after the purchase you get all upgrades to the product free of any charges.

After that, if you would like to upgrade to a newer version, you will be able to do so after purchasing a discounted upgrade license. (Of course, you are in no way obligated to upgrade to the new versions: you may continue using the version that you have purchased for as long as you like, if it works for you well enough, without paying any additional upgrade fees!)

Please visit our web sites for the latest information:

What is HostName Commander?

HostName Commander is a software utility that lets you manage the relationships between the host names and the IP addresses of the computers.

What is a host name?

Host name is a textual label assigned to a computer, to distinguish it from other computers on the network. On the Internet, host name has the same meaning as web site name, or domain name. For instance, www.microsoft.com is the host name of the Microsoft's web server. You enter the host name into the address bar of your web browser to tell the browser which server you want to connect to. However, before the web browser can connect to the web server, it must determine the correct IP address of the target computer.

What is an IP address?

IP address is a set of four numbers, each between 0 and 255, separated with dots. For example, 168.192.0.1 is an IP address. Each computer connected to a network has its own IP address, and the Internet uses the network addresses to direct the data between the computers attached to the network.

How do the host names and IP addresses relate to each other?

Each valid host name is assigned to the appropriate IP address, and the table of such assignments is maintained by the special computers called DNS servers. When you enter a host name into a web browser, the browser sends the host name to the DNS server first, which replies with the IP address that corresponds to that host name. Then the web browser connects to the web server using its IP address. (You might not notice that, because the communication with the DNS server occurs very quickly.)

So where does HostName Commander fit in this picture?

HostName Commander acts as a negotiator between the web browser and the DNS server. That is, when a web browser or other Internet-related program issues a request to resolve a host name to its IP address, HostName Commander checks the host names that you have set up with it, and if the matching host name found, returns the IP address you have assigned to that host name, without contacting the DNS server. The web browser uses the IP address provided by HostName Commander to connect to the server, again without contacting the DNS server. If you have not set up an IP address for that host name with HostName Commander, the request for teh IP address is passed on to the DNS server, as usual. So, with HostName Commander you can control which servers correspond to the host names, overriding the information provided by the DNS servers.

How can I use the ability of HostName Commander to assign IP addresses to the host names?

When you run HostName Commander, it displays the current host name information for your computer as a tree-like structure:

(Note that if you are running HostName Commander for the fist time, and you have not previously set up any host names, you could see a blank window, or a window with just one IP address, 127.0.0.1, with only one host name "localhost" mapped to it.)

You can modify the text of a host name or IP address by selecting it in the HostName Commander window and then clicking on it with the mouse once (or by pressing the F2 key), just like you would go about renaming a file in Windows Explorer:

In order for the changes you make to become effective, you must save the changes by using the Save Changes command, or by pressing the Ctrl+S key.

Keep in mind, however, that some network software keeps the mapping of the host names to the IP addresses in a cache, and the cache may not become updated when you save the change. (The details of updating the cache are program-specific and depend on each program's the implementation). This means that although the new mappings of the host names to the IP addresses become effective immediately after you save the changes, some network programs may still use the old information, as it was stored in their cache. If this causes a problem with your software, you can usually just restart it to force it to update its cache. In the worst case scenario, you may need to restart Windows in order the new host name information to take effect, but such situations are rare.

Another issue that may prevent your Internet programs from using the updated host name information is the web browser cache, where the web pages of the recently visited web sites is stored between the sessions, to speed up the loading of the pages that were already loaded by the browser during the previous visit to a web site. If the browser has saved a web page form a web site in its cache, and later you have mapped the host name of that web site to a different IP address, the browser may not detect the change and keep displaying the web page from its cache, even though it must be fetched from a different server now.

As you probably know, web browsers usually store the pages they display in the web browser cache, so that the next time you want to view the same page, the browser would not have to download it all again, and display the version of the page that was previously stored in the cache. Usually this helps increase the speed of the browsing, however it may cause a problem when you use HostName Commander to change the IP address for some host name: if your web browser has saved a web page from a web site with that host name in its cache, and later you have mapped the host name of that web site to a different IP address, the browser may not detect the change and keep displaying the web page from its cache, even though it must be fetched from a different server now.

To solve this problem, HostName Commander prompts you to clean up the web browser cache for the web sites for which you have modified the host name information. When you save the changes, HostName Commander detects which host names might need to be updated, and displays the following prompt:

HostName Commander automatically places the check marks for the host names which were modified, and leaves the rest of the host name unchecked. You can modify the list of the host names for which you want the web browser cache to be cleaned by checking or clearing the check marks next to the host names in the list displayed.

You can also select one of the options offered to control how the Clean up Browser Cache should be displayed next time:

HostName Commander allows you to quickly turn off the host name information you have set up with it, and let Windows perform the host name resolution as usual, as if HostName Commander were not present in the system. You may find this feature of use when, for instance, the host name information you have set up causes a web site not to display properly. Or, if you have configured HostName Commander to block some web sites from other users of your computer, but you want to see the blocked websites yourself.

If you want to backup the current host name information managed by HostName Commander, use the Backup command of HostName Commander. To display this command click on the little arrow next to the Save Changes button: and then select Backup from the pop-down menu:

You will be prompted to select the file in which to backup the information. After the backup is complete, don't forget to add this file to the backup set of your backup software (please consult your backup software manual for information on how to make it backup specific files.)

If you have previously used the Backup command of HostName Commander to store the current host name information in a file, you can restore that information back using the Restore command. To display this command, click on the little arrow next to the Save Changes button: and then select Restore from the pop-down menu:

You will be prompted to select the file from which to restore the information. IMPORTANT: If you restore the information from a file, all current host name information will be replaced with the new information from the file. Although you can Undo the Restore command, we recommend to backup the current information into a different file, before proceeding with the restore operation, to be able to restore the current information at a later time, if needed.

You can customize the behavior of HostName Commander in some situations to better suit your requirements and personal working style by changing its options. To change the options, press the Options button on the menu bar: (or press the Ctrl+O keys). As a result, the Options dialog box will be shown:

This dialog box contains the following areas:

If you want to backup the settings of HostName Commander (such as the current selection of its options, the positions of its windows, the licensing information currently entered in it), you can use Windows Registry Editor to backup the appropriate registry key into a file.

IMPORTANT: Registry Editor is a powerful system tool that should be used with care. Be very careful not to delete or change anything there unless you know what you are doing, because you can make your computer unbootable!

Specifically, to backup the setting of HostName Commander into a file, run Registry Editor (RegEdit.exe), and select the following key

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
  • SOFTWARE
    • HostNameCommander

Then choose File - Export Registry File from the menu of Registry Editor, make sure that the option Export range: Selected branch is selected, and enter a file name in which to store the settings.

If you later decide to restore the settings from the file, locate the file with Windows Explorer and double click on it with the mouse. You may be prompted to confirm that you want to import the settings into the registry.

As of this writing, there are several lists of the ad servers available on the Internet, some of which are listed here:

This user's guide is available online in the printed-friendly format: