Why won't Windows hosts file block websites?

Question

I'm trying to block a website because someone keeps downloading crap from this website and it's spyware. I tell them it's spyware and they download it anyway. So I'm trying to block it via the hosts file.

My host file looks like

127.0.0.1   scorpionsaver.com
127.0.0.1   174.129.20.145

the second entry is the actual IP address of the website.

I save the changes. I'm running it as an admin so it doesn't make me save the changes to a new file. It saves directly to the hosts file. So I save and quit. Then I reboot my computer. I visit this website and it still loads. So I also tried using 0.0.0.0 instead of 127.0.0.1. Same problem.

Answer 1

127.0.0.1 should be sufficient, as this will route any traffic to the loopback adapter.

To effectively block the site, use the full DNS name(s):

127.0.0.1 scorpionsaver.com www.scorpionsaver.com subdomain1.scorpionsaver.com

Verify that your changes persist after rebooting.