Originally Posted by
SpammersAreScum
"break the internet" being tongue-in-cheek, I assume. The idea of using a hosts file like that is not unreasonable, but needs to be properly curated. A lot of the listed hosts are indeed ad sites or data-collecting sites, but some are rather more critical. To take the most glaring example: the list includes both
www.google.com and
www.google-analytics.com. Including the latter will cut down on Google's collecting data, with generally no ill effects; including the former, not so much.
To partly repeat myself, it wasn't a strategic design - just an attempt to restore usability that morning. As it happens the effects have been sufficiently minimal that I haven't gone back to it yet to refine or remove entries, which is not good for IB overall but an unintentional side effect of the aggression on the ads that are running.
As mentioned above IE (actually Defender) fixed the Google one as local redirection of that is apparently a common malware attack that it protects against.