A most excellent useful utility that makes editing the hosts file child's play.

Three minor issues that I have:-

1. using this utility adds and additional 'Permissions Repair' job to OS X's permission repair procedure when executed from Disk Utility. There is a permission repair for the 'hosts file' that never goes away every single time permission repair is executed. It is perpetual.

2. Not sure why, but if I click on setting within Gas Mask the setting windows won't show unless I open the editor window and then suddenly both windows open. This never happened on a previous version (a few versions back I think).... Or is it the other way round, i.e. click on settings to get the editor window open; I'm not 100% because I've just reinstalled Mac OS X & Bootcamp and have yet to install Gas Mask back as well as many other apps.

3. If I remember correctly, Gas Mask may not always automatically run upon 'log-in/boot up' even though start with login is enabled.

Otherwise an excellent utility and a must have if above could be remedied.

A good addition would be a button to flush the dnscacheutil or a preference to do it when the app is quit perhaps.

Exceptional, though there are three things I would like to see added or addressed.

First, it shouldn't need to run resident if the host file is truly being reinitiated via a cache flush.

Second, it is quite slow to launch, though in part that might be that I'm using a hefty host file with additions from some of the adblock IP sites out there.

Third, and this is a very minor idea, it might be nice for some who are timid about this kind of thing to have a little "wizard" dialogue that walks a timid newbie through adding and entry to the end of the hosts list.

Again, this is a breath of fresh air... and eases the process of being add-free beyond just a browser plug-in. I have multiple browsers and web-access programs that are now more free of bandwidth parasites!

There's a glitch with this app in Lion. Whenever I edit the hosts file outside of using Gas Mask (doing it manually, basically), when I open Gas Mask, it doesn't show the newly added information to the hosts file in Gas Mask... no matter how many times I re-open the app. However, once I delete the Gas Mask preferences file and re-launch the app... it shows everything that was added to the hosts file. Every time I edit the hosts file manually, I have to delete the Gas Mask preferences file in order for it to display the information correctly. It works fine, of course... when I just simply use Gas Mask to edit the Hosts file, but there are some cases in which I do it by hand. Just a minor annoyance. Love the app, though.

Wow! This is a pain-free way to add, edit and switch between hosts files. No need to fire up Terminal or a text editor. Works as advertised!

I downloaded gasmask onto my OS X version 10.6.7 and it didnt work. A default page came up (MT Media Temple server default page). It stopped me from seeing my live website and from seeing the website that was in progress of being built. My website it now live and I can't see it or access the admin page. I tried taking gasmask off my computer (by trashing it and emptying the trash). I emptied the cache and reset safari but it still wont let me view the admin page of my website. Have I done something wrong in the way I have deleted Gas Mask? Are the codes that I loaded still in the system somewhere. HELP!