Hosts: Office 365: better, but...

[StevenBlack]

I use Little Snitch on MacOS. What a great product. As a result, I'm very aware, and can fine-control, connections in or out.

Several months ago, merely starting Word from an Office 365 subscription triggered 19 attempts to connect to various servers.

This appears much better now, but as of today, starting Word and Excel (Office 365 subscription) on MacOS still triggers the following connection attempts.

omextemplates.content.office.net
config.edge.skype.com
ocos-office365-s2s.msedge.net
officeclient.microsoft.com
nexus.officeapps.live.com
d.docs.live.net
client-office365-tas.msedge.net

Among other things above, I consider Word and Excel's attempts to connect to Skype are abhorrent. What do you think?

[ScriptTiger]

Maybe we could get a business/corporate extension to handle Microsoft products and IoT devices (https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts/issues/493), as it's definitely extremely useful for users of related products but completely irrelevant to everyone else, which is the majority of users.

[funilrys]

Hello Steven @StevenBlack and @ScriptTiger,

As I'm actually rebuilding the system behind Ultimate.Hosts.Blacklist I also had to review our whitelist list.
So maybe the following whitelists may help build what @ScriptTiger mentioned as it's one among others used by @pi-hole ...

https://github.com/deathbybandaid/piholeparser/tree/master/ScriptLsts/Whitelsts/WhiteDomains

Have a nice day/night.

[ScriptTiger]

Nice, @funilrys. After looking through it, I think I'd like to revise the terminology of the target software to "bloatware" and call it a bloatware extension. I think that better describes what we're trying to squelch here.

Obviously robust software suites like Office 365 are going to have extensive "integrations" with multiple systems allowing you to integrate with Skype for Business to place calls from within documents, resolve URLs with Microsoft Edge, etc. But for users that just want to get work done, such "features" can be quite annoying and unnecessarily taxing on the system. While blocking them may increase performance, it may also be a perceived hit to the user experience for those that enjoy an abundance of bells and whistles.

[anudeepND]

@funilrys If you're looking for whitelists, take a look at my work https://github.com/anudeepND/whitelist

[StevenBlack]

I would propose that, going forward, for for anyone who wants this level of "bells and whistles" from their document editor, that this hosts file is definitely and categorically NOT for them.

Somebody convince me otherwise? I'm interested in the counterpoint.

We had a similar issue awhile ago, wherein the default Windows text editor is unable to distinguish line endings used in our hosts files. My feeling then, as now, remains: anyone who is such a mass-market-grade computing user, these hosts are not made especially for you.

And just this week, somebody complaining that occasional areas (ads) on msn.com don't show anymore. Really? Let me debug that for you.

I'd like to propose that this hosts collection is for smart people who "get" it. For the others, well, send them to Symantec or McAfee and wish them, good luck and happy computing!

[ScriptTiger]

Security surrounding Microsoft products has more holes than Swiss cheese, so doing away with bloatware like this also lessens the load on network administrators managing all the firewall exception paperwork. For me this would be a pure efficiency thing in all directions as part of a broader approach to streamline traffic to essential only.

[anupritaisno1]

Microsoft and security you say?
Never heard of it