How can I completely and surgically block any communication between adobe.com and my computer?

I'm not much of a networking guru, but I'm needing to conduct an experiment to see why some RSLs are not loading on some client computers when they try to load a swf off of their intranet's server. I'm tempted to believe this is the result of their inability to access adobe.com to download the RSLs. However we have seen these same swfs work on other computers that are kept away from the Internet, and my theory here is that this is simply due to the RSLs being cached a while back inside of their Flash Players.

To test the theory, I'm wanting to completely block *.adobe.com from my computer, so as to avoid being able to download RSLs from their website. Then I want to completely uninstall, then reinstall Flash Player, then load the swf from one of our own servers.

I am NOT able to manipulate hardly any of our own networking at all. I can use Windows Firewall, but that doesn't appear to be able to block specific sites. I have tried adding this site to things like the Restricted Zone in IE, but I'm still able to visit the site just fine for some reason. There is no reason this should be so difficult.

Any ideas? Thanks!

Panzercrisis

Posted 2013-06-27T14:41:21.450

Reputation: 435

Answers

Simply disconnect the network cable? Or you could edit the hosts file.

Add:

127.0.0.1     adobe.com

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

R-D

Posted 2013-06-27T14:41:21.450

Reputation: 2 506

3This won't actually block *.adobe.com, just adobe.com. Blocking all subdomains in the hosts file will be tedious. – Darth Android – 2013-06-27T14:47:46.770

1Doh, ofcourse. My mistake. Then only a real firewall solution will work, or as I already stated, disconnecting the cable. – R-D – 2013-06-27T14:51:56.323

Thanks, the hosts file thing worked. I couldn't just pull the cord out though, because I needed to connect to another computer still. – Panzercrisis – 2013-06-27T15:25:49.887

Since you don't have access to the network hardware, the easiest method I can think of would be to insert your own router in the mix and block Adobe there. You can get a cheap ($30) wifi router from Fry's or Best Buy. Block *.adobe.com within the router's firewall and have the chosen systems connect to your new middle router instead of the company's.

Another longshot option would be to prevent anything from Adobe from starting up to begin with. There are scripts you can use to prevent applications from starting. I found one with a quick search, I know there are others. Note, I can't vouch for that software, I just found it a second ago. I include it as an example. This one only claims to work up to XP anyway.

Lenwood

Posted 2013-06-27T14:41:21.450

Reputation: 253