[Drago]

The “hosts” file entry bypasses the DNS look-up and goes straight to the IP listed...so you won’t ever have DNS errors on FR. If you want to check if your DNS is OK with FR again you’ll have to remove the FR hosts file entry.

Also, for OS X/Mac users, here is the “hosts” file info.:

http://www.tekrevue.com/tip/edit-hosts-file-mac-os-x/

[snarkpup]

If you want to check if your DNS is OK with FR again you’ll have to remove the FR hosts file entry.

What I've been doing every couple of hours is testing "freerepublic.com" at the W3C Markup Validation Service. It's been coming back with "500 Can't connect to freerepublic.com:80" all day. (Other site names work fine.) If the W3C can't access the site, that's a fairly definitive indication that things are hosed.