LiveHosts
Switch your host/IP mappings in real time without editing your hosts file
What is LiveHosts?
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Summary
LiveHosts is a Chrome extension that aims at providing a working (even if sub-obtimal) solution to a common nuisance that many web developers have to deal with every day. If you have multiple versions of your websites sharing the same host names on multiple environments, you often need to switch the assignments in your OS hosts file.
Other extensions (like the life-saving HostAdmin) can help with the cumbersomeness, but changes to the hosts file usually take an inconvenient amount of time to actually affect the browser.
Unfortunately, there is no way to make Chrome direct requests for a hostname to a specific IP without a standard redirect - you could set up a smart HTTP proxy, but it's often not possible or not convenient.
This extension settles for a sub-obtimal approach: requests to the indicated hostnames are redirected to the chosen IPs with an additional Host header. The browser's address bar reflects this behaviour showing the hostname right after the IP (e.g. http://127.0.0.1/www.example.com/). The extension also tries to take care of all requests to either the IP or the hostname in a consistent way.
Issues
After the redirect, the user is effectively in a different domain that the one they expected. They may notice some functional differences:
- depending on the server, parts of a web page referring to the site URL (like href and src attributes) could be different from the original
- window.location has a different value that can potentially throw off JavaScript snippets
- most Cross-Origin request won't work
User reviews
User reviews summary
Pros
- The extension can be quite useful for web developers
- Works well in Firefox as reported by some users
- Allows for viewing a test website while building them
- Very simple to use and offers functionality of enabling it for only one tab.
Cons
- The extension does not work properly with HTTPS and breaks a lot of dev setups
- It is reported to not work well on Chrome
- Rewrites the URL instead of updating the DNS/hosts file, which can cause issues
- Does not have an enable and disable button for the records
- Breaks redirects and does not work perfectly with specific systems like WordPress on a local server installation.
Most mentioned
- The extension rewrites the URL to the specified IP instead of altering the DNS/Hosts file
- Issues with compatibility with Chrome
- Struggles with HTTPS compatibility
Recent reviews
Safety
Risk impact
LiveHosts may not be safe to use and it requires some risky permissions. Exercise caution when installing this extension. Review carefully before installing.
Risk likelihood
LiveHosts has earned a good reputation and can be trusted.
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