Gas Mask

Gas Mask is a super handy app for Mac that helps you manage your hosts files easily. Before we dive in, let’s talk a bit about what hosts files even are. Back in the day, before DNS was a thing, people used to manually update these files to link hostnames with IP addresses for the ARPANET group. Sounds old school, right? But guess what? You can still use hosts files, and they work the same way on different operating systems!

Create Custom Hosts Files

If you’re working on website development, custom hosts files are your best friend. They let you override DNS for specific addresses while working on your computer. This means you can test things out before any big changes go live.

User-Friendly Interface

The beauty of Gas Mask lies in its clean and organized interface. When you open the app, you’ll notice it’s split into two main sections: on the right side, you see all the content of your hosts file. On the left side, there’s a list of all your defined hosts files sorted by type—local, remote, or combined.

Getting Started is Easy!

Diving into it is a breeze! Just create a new hosts file and enter the hostname you want to resolve along with its IP address. Then save and activate it by clicking some buttons—simple as that!

Convenient Toolbar Features

The toolbar at the top makes everything even easier with small buttons for common tasks like creating, removing, saving, or activating files. You can create multiple hosts files and only turn them on when needed—perfect for testing!

Customizing Your Experience

You can tweak settings in the Preferences window where options like overriding external changes and enabling syntax highlighting await you. Plus, if you're dealing with remote hosts files, you can set up how often they update or even create hotkeys for quick access.

Edit Without Terminal Hassles

If you're using macOS and want to edit your original hosts file via Terminal.app—that's an option too! But who wants to mess around with command lines? With Gas Mask, you've got a user-friendly tool that lets you manage multiple hosts files without any fuss.