can't connect to the internet

[sabrage]

So, for a while now I've been using the hosts file to block unwanted ads and webpages. I noticed today that it wasnt working, and I was trying to troubleshoot it. I restarted my computer at one point and now I cant access the internet at all. When I try to connect to my network, I am immediately treated to a "Windows was unable to connect to..." error, and the same thing happens with my neighbor's. I'm at a complete loss here. I didnt touch a sibgle other system file besides hosts, and I've tried to restore it to its original state to no avail. Ipconfig/all shows everythi g as "media disconnected" (including several "tunnel adapters " that i know nothing about) but device manager seems to be working and i cqnt exactly update my Netgear's driver anyways. My computer is nowhere near my roiter to hardline it right now. I dont have a Windows recovery disk for 7.

Anyways, posting from my phone sucks and dealing with internet problems like this is a massive pain, so hopefully someone here has the faintest clue what's wrong.

[Kamikaze-X]

So, for a while now I've been using the hosts file to block unwanted ads and webpages. I noticed today that it wasnt working, and I was trying to troubleshoot it. I restarted my computer at one point and now I cant access the internet at all. When I try to connect to my network, I am immediately treated to a "Windows was unable to connect to..." error, and the same thing happens with my neighbor's. I'm at a complete loss here. I didnt touch a sibgle other system file besides hosts, and I've tried to restore it to its original state to no avail. Ipconfig/all shows everythi g as "media disconnected" (including several "tunnel adapters " that i know nothing about) but device manager seems to be working and i cqnt exactly update my Netgear's driver anyways. My computer is nowhere near my roiter to hardline it right now. I dont have a Windows recovery disk for 7.

Anyways, posting from my phone sucks and dealing with internet problems like this is a massive pain, so hopefully someone here has the faintest clue what's wrong.

Just a quick one... Can you connect your phone to to your wifi and see if it works ok?

[sabrage]

Definitely not an issue with my router. I somehow destroyed my computer's ability to access the internet, but i have no idea how exactly it would have happened or how to fix it.

[ColOfNature]

Try resetting the TCP/IP stack and WINSOCK settings to default. In command prompt do:

netsh int ip reset reset.log
netsh winsock reset catalog

then reboot. If that doesn't work you could try uninstalling the network adapter in Device Manager then rebooting again to force Windows to reinstall the driver.

[sabrage]

Seems to have fixed itself overnight. I'm at little frustrated that I still don't know what the problem was, but I'll be back if it does it again.

[djbriandamage]

I tried blocking ads via the HOSTS file but found it very problematic. HOSTS just blocks entire domains or IPs which often contain valuable content in addition to ads, and it blocks all protocols instead of just the ones that transmit ads (like HTTP and HTTPS).

Have you tried Adblock+ for Firefox? I find it more than sufficient. It's incredibly rare that I ever see a web ad thanks to the self-refreshing blocklist subscriptions. Adblock exists for Chrome and Opera as well but neither is as good or as thorough as the Android one.