>>14485606 thank you, anon.
"Don't drink water from the Hydrant in the barn! For God's sake people, you're not a horse or a cow!"
when you type a URL into the address box of your browser and hit GO
the internet has to figure out what that URL means.
it uses Domain Name Resolution Service
to find the ip address associated with the URL.
Usually, the process is to go to the Domain Name Servers that keep the relationships between the URL and the correct ip address.
When you put an ip address in your HOSTS file, you are telling the DNS to use that server to resolve the URL to an ip, before the DNS servers on the internet get a chance to.
This can associate URL / ip incorrectly. Worse, it can route all your traffic via a man-in-the-middle, giving whoever owns that ip / server all your traffic.