How to clear hosts file on Android device

Hosts is an important element of modern operating systems including Windows and Android. However, some applications can harm your mobile device using hosts as a hive cluster for various treats. So, it’s important to keep clean hosts file. Otherwise, you data won’t be safe. In this guide, you’ll learn how to remove all redundant things in hosts on your Android device.

Step 1: Root Access

Users aren’t allowed to apply changes for hosts file without Root Permission or Superuser access. If you got a rooted device, then you take risks to infect your system. So, if you hosts file was changed, you have already Root Permission. Just in case, you can test this fact using the Root Checker application:

Step 2: Explorer

To manage your files and folders on Android device, you should install a simple file explorer. We recommend you to use Root Browser. Download and launch it. Then open systemetc:

Then Root Browser will ask you to give Root access. Choose Allow / Grant. If you don’t see any window when opening the etc directory, it means that you haven’t Root access.

Step 3: Cleaning

Click on hosts file → Open asText fileRB Text editor:

 

Your hosts file will be opened in text editor:

Just delete all URLs except the only: 127.0.0.1 localhost. Remove them and click on the Save button:

You can use Hosts Editor as an alternative to RB Text editor. It also requires Root Access. In practice, this app allows you to select unwanted addresses and delete them:

Discussion
Guest wrote:
Thanks for the reference to ‘root browser’. All problems fixed as there was an additional IP address
Thanks