Windows 10: Vanilla hosts file ( hosts file not working )

Hi I keep getting this symptom from time to time , it fixes with windows updates but then occasionally come back .

I have a list of advertising and malware websites that I filter through hosts file that are often used by a chat client as per the chat client community recommendations .

Now I noticed that there comes time when the file becomes vanilla afterwards (ignored) and all the filtered sites are accessible via browsers again and appearing in chat client .

There were 2 suggested tricks I came across back when that happened that weren't guaranteed to fix the issue but did sometimes :
1 - Renaming the file to Hosts then back to hosts
2 - running ipconfig /flushdns command in an elevated prompt

Those lately became non helpful at all though .

I have a VPN installed on my system named Hotspotshield (Only available option for my region) , I highly suspect it to be the cause but i managed to stop its service but the problem remained .

-Edit-
I uninstalled Hotspotshield but still that didn't solve the issue .

And btw yes dism and sfc run without problems since i did recently an in-place upgrade using media creation tools .

Anything i haven't thought of ?

-Edit 2-
I found a work around , I found that owner was SYSTEM , when I took ownership to be my account it became functional again , now any idea why that worked/happens ?

:)

 

File Hosts permissions

You're totally right ZigZag.

This is the exact message I receive.

Etc folder security properties show nothing set for Administrators group.

Thank you.

 

File Hosts permissions

I appreciate all the information.

We suggest that you create a new user on the same computer to check if the issue will persist. If not, it's possible that the affected user account is corrupted. An SFC scan is recommended to
help you scan for corruptions in Windows system files and restore corrupted files. To do this, click on this link

Let us know how it goes.

 

Hotspot shield had some government issues a small while back so could be something to do with that. Some people were reporting "funny things" happening after it was updated. Some found it was removed and others found it all of a sudden was set as a virus.

 

Well I just managed to uninstall it for a test , that didnt solve the issue still .

 

It certainly looks like some third-party app is the cause. I can confirm it doesn't happen on a 'purely-Microsoft' install of Windows 10.

 

I don't understand how any app(other than one specifically for host file) can change it?
I mean, it is in System32....
And the only way to change it, is with admin privileges.

By access I mean make changes!

 

From the OP it appears Hosts is not being changed, rather it is being ignored....

 

I read it as "changing to vanilla" as it reverts back to the standard:

After he has set something like mine:

 

no the hosts file don't change , its just ignored correct .

 

OK.
Then maybe one of the entries is spelled wrong, or missing, or it just needs to be updated, for example a current malware site list is:
http://www.malwaredomainlist.com/hostslist/hosts.txt

 

I found a work around , I found that owner was SYSTEM , when I took ownership to be my account it became functional again , now any idea why that happens ?