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I'm one of those people that needs a bit of protection from their selves at work, so I wanted to add facebook.com to my hosts file. But something strange happens. The moment I add it Microsoft Security Essentials notifies me of a PossibleHostsFileHijack and presto: the facebook entry is removed automagically! All other entries, like gmail et cetera, are working just fine and dandy, but everytime I try to add facebook, it gets removed!

What is this voodoo? Any ideas? I'm on a windows 7 professional 64bit machine, but the same happens at home on my 32 bit windows 7 machine. Any ideas? Facebook being evil?

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What? No, it's not Facebook being evil at all. It's more due to more virus out there that targeted Facebook. After all, your average Facebook user may not realize the SSL icon get crossed out, and happily enter their information on even obviously not-Facebook site. I believe since most GMail users are more technically inclined, the virus maker disregard targeting them. That, and the fact there are tiny population of GMail users (it's just more regarded in IT news), while Facebook are large enough to start their own country.

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My computer at work (brand new), my home laptop and home desktop are free of viruses, are all up-to-date, have the latest MS Security Essential definitions. When I run a full system scan with the MSSE application no viruses are found, still when I add a facebook entry to any of the hosts file, it gets removed after closing the hosts file. I find this very disturbing to be honest. – Oxymoron Aug 30 '11 at 12:04
Okay, I'm not clear enough. It's MSE, that falsely detect the attempt to add Facebook as blocked host to be a virus attack. So no, it's not a virus, it's your own act that was falsely detected, and then MSE 'repair' it – Martheen Cahya Paulo Aug 30 '11 at 15:48
All right, but how can I get rid of that behavior. I don't want MSE to decide for me what's allowed in my hosts file ;) – Oxymoron Aug 30 '11 at 18:52
Ack, now that I don't know, I'm too happy with avast to ever tried MSE. Perhaps you can set an exception to host file somewhere? Or, probably you can try use some custom DNS service where you can then remove Facebook from it's entry – Martheen Cahya Paulo Aug 31 '11 at 6:49
Facebook uses Bing, right? – Helbreder Dec 5 '11 at 12:19

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