Hello, I was wondering if software can be created, that when installed by the user would automatically redirect them to certain pages depending on what they were going to? For example if they wanted to go to www.google.co.uk, it would automatically take them to another link. Obviously im not talking about installing it onto their pc without their knowledge like spyware, but with their agreed installation. Also, the list of redirected sites would be continuously updated so there would need to be a way for the software on the users pc to update itself somehow (or perhaps read from a destination online). I know its still slightly sketchy but thats all the details i can give really. I've heard things about the HOSTS file? If i wanted someone to develop a piece of software that made changes to a users hosts file when installed which read the changes from an online source which could be constantly updated / added to, what would be a reasonable price to pay? Taabish
As far as I'm aware, the hosts file will only 'map' a domain to another domain (well, IP address). So long as you only ever want 'google.co.uk' to go to 'someotherdomain.com' that should work. What the hosts file won't allow you to do, though, is send 'google.co.uk' to 'someotherdomain.com/a_particular_page.html' for example. If you need to be able to point to a particular page, you would probably want to use a proxy. In theory, you can do this two ways. On the client's computer, install a local proxy server that keeps itself up to date with the changes you want. Alternatively, depending on the bandwidth requirements, you can have the client just proxy straight through a server that you control and update that way. By using proxies, (local or remote) you will probably have to get the user to set their browser up to use the particular proxy. I guess you could write code to intercept any HTTP request and automatically send it to a local or remote proxy, in which case the user won't even have to change their browser settings. Anyway, a little information, but maybe not what you want to hear. If I were you, and I had the bandwidth, I'd run it remotely. That way, you just have to set up a proxy server somewhere and just have the clients point their browsers to your proxy. You would need to do some work, obviously, but at least then any changes would be in real time... Now that I think about it, if you want to do a client side version, snoop around for some adware code. A lot of them intercept all your requests and change things depending on certain variables. It's exactly what you're after, except you're going legit