Using the hosts file to speed up loading site

I seem to remember that you can use command/ipconfig ......to find out the IP address of your favourite web sites so that they load quicker when put into the hosts file.

Can anyone tell me the command please?

 

Is it not possible to ping the web address from the command line to get the IP??

If I type:
ping www.google.com
it gives me an IP address... I guess this will have been extracted from the Master DNS... Im not sure how much time you will save by putting this in the host file and it won't be updated if the DNS changes.

Unless theres another way?

 

your pc will check the hosts file firstly, before resolving the ip address with any DNS server but you would not see any considerable diffrence in time (millisecs/a few secs if any) your best bet is place any sites in there that you don't want people to get access too and tick it as read only

 

If using Windows 2000/XP and have the service DNS Client running, then you don't need to fiddle with the HOSTS file.

 

thanks guys