Is it possible in Internet Explorer 7 to simulate HOSTS file entries with a plugin?
For example, can you tell IE to resolve all requests for xyz.com to a specific IP address?
We have some QA testers which are testing a specific URL. They cannot get administrative access to change their HOSTS file.
Is it possible in Firefox or any other browsers?
Not exactly the same thing, but you could use a proxy server that redirects requests appropriately. Polipo and Squid can do that, among others.
If you want to fool your system about dns results you need to have administrative rights in some way or another (edit hosts file, install a proxy, change network settings to use a proxy, and so on...).
For Internet Explorer, I did not find any addon as of 2015/05/30.
For other browser, you can use HostsAdmin.
Install Chrome Extension or Firefox Addon
Then you need to grant your computer's account write permissions to file hosts like following:
Windows Vista/7 open cmd as Administrator and type following command: To Users group
cacls %windir%/system32/drivers/etc/hosts /E /G Users:W
Custom User account
cacls %windir%/system32/drivers/etc/hosts /E /G "User Account Name":W
Linux (Ubuntu Fedora ...) open terminal and type following command:
sudo chmod og+w /etc/hosts
Mac OS X
open terminal and type following command:
sudo chmod og+w /etc/hosts
