And then there are programs like Inoculate that use the hosts file of the operating system to block spyware websites from being opened by routing the address of the spyware website to the local computer system (which means the website will not be displayed when the user tries to open it).

Inoculate is a portable software program for the Windows operating system that will add more than 14000 spyware websites to the Windows host file. These 14000 spyware websites are blocked from being accessed by users of the computer system. The software creates a backup of the current host file before it begins to add the spyware websites to it so that spyware attacks and spyware programs are automatically blocked.

It is possible to reset the Windows hosts file or restore a previously created backup. One slight disadvantage of this spyware blocking approach is that it is not possible to view the spyware websites before they are added to the hosts file. Another problem is that the program is not automatically updating the spyware list over the Internet which alternatives like Hostsman which offers four different block lists and auto updating. Hostsman on the other hand is not a portable software program.

It would be nice if the developer of Inoculate would add an auto update option and the ability to load different hosts file lists into the application.