{"id":51524,"date":"2026-04-08T14:26:56","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T18:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=51524"},"modified":"2026-04-10T15:29:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T19:29:52","slug":"adobe-modifies-your-hosts-file-for-their-analytics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/08\/adobe-modifies-your-hosts-file-for-their-analytics\/","title":{"rendered":"Adobe Modifies Your Hosts File for Their Analytics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.osnews.com\/story\/144737\/adobe-secretly-modifies-your-hosts-file-for-the-stupidest-reason\/\">Thom Holwerda<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=47664205\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.osnews.com\/story\/144737\/adobe-secretly-modifies-your-hosts-file-for-the-stupidest-reason\/\">\n<p>If you&rsquo;re using Windows or macOS and have Adobe Creative Cloud installed, you may want to take a peek at your hosts file. It turns out Adobe adds a bunch of entries into the hosts file, for a very stupid reason.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>If the DNS entry in your hosts file is present, your browser will therefore connect to their server, so they know you have Creative Cloud installed, otherwise the load fails, which they detect.<\/p>\n<p>They used to just hit <tt>http:\/\/localhost:&lt;various ports&gt;\/cc.png<\/tt> which connected to your Creative Cloud app directly, but then <a href=\"https:\/\/developer.chrome.com\/blog\/local-network-access\">Chrome started blocking Local Network Access<\/a>, so they had to do this hosts file hack instead.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Sure enough, my <tt>\/etc\/hosts<\/tt> contains:<\/p>\n\n<pre>## Adobe Creative Cloud WAM - Start ##\n166.117.29.222 detect-ccd.creativecloud.adobe.com\n## Adobe Creative Cloud WAM - End ##\n<\/pre>\n\n<p>I don&rsquo;t even use Creative Cloud. Lightroom Classic is the only app I wish I could get from the Mac App Store, because Adobe&rsquo;s own updater is so intrusive and terrible.<\/p>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/27\/adobe-raises-monthly-photography-plan-prices\/\">Adobe Raises Monthly Photography Plan Prices<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/17\/u-s-sues-adobe-over-subscriptions\/\">U.S. Sues Adobe Over Subscriptions<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/05\/adobe-at-40\/\">Adobe at 40<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/05\/25\/adobe-genuine-service\/\">Adobe Genuine Service<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/11\/why-do-web-browsers-allow-access-to-the-local-network\/\">Why Do Web Browsers Allow Access to the Local Network?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/23\/adobe-jumps-the-shark\/\">Adobe Jumps the Shark<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/12\/adobe-creative-cloud-installer-deleting-hidden-files\/\">Adobe Creative Cloud Installer Deleting Hidden Files<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"adobe-modifies-your-hosts-file-for-their-analytics-update-2026-04-09\">Update (<a href=\"#adobe-modifies-your-hosts-file-for-their-analytics-update-2026-04-09\">2026-04-09<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2026\/04\/09\/adobe-etc-hosts-diddling\">John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2026\/04\/09\/adobe-etc-hosts-diddling\">\n<p>They didn&rsquo;t <em>have<\/em> to do this, of course. In fact, quite obviously, they definitely should <em>not<\/em> be doing this. Adobe is just a third-party developer, no better, no more trusted, no more important than any other. Imagine if every piece of software on your computer added entries to your <code>\/etc\/hosts<\/code> file. Madness.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"adobe-modifies-your-hosts-file-for-their-analytics-update-2026-04-10\">Update (<a href=\"#adobe-modifies-your-hosts-file-for-their-analytics-update-2026-04-10\">2026-04-10<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/adobe-etc-hosts\/\">Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/adobe-etc-hosts\/\">\n<p>In his headline, Tsai says this is &ldquo;for their analytics&rdquo;, but I do not think that is right. I spent a little time digging into this today and, while I have nothing concrete, I expect this is for integrations between web apps and the company&rsquo;s desktop apps. In Adobe Express &mdash; free web apps for a handful of common image and PDF editing tasks &mdash; there are at least <a href=\"https:\/\/new.express.adobe.com\/static\/66223.2670c7b2730f1d7f.js\">two JavaScript<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/new.express.adobe.com\/static\/x-app-homeAndNonHomeSharedBricks.8a8cd57c8909b0f2.js\">files<\/a> containing references to a <code>ccdDetectUtil<\/code>, presumably standing for &ldquo;Creative Cloud Desktop detection utility&rdquo;. If the user has the desktop apps installed, it appears to suggest the Express app, too, and I am guessing this also powers a thing where you can update a Creative Cloud desktop app by clicking a button on the web.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>See also: <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=47617463\">Hacker News<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thom Holwerda (via Hacker News): If you&rsquo;re using Windows or macOS and have Adobe Creative Cloud installed, you may want to take a peek at your hosts file. It turns out Adobe adds a bunch of entries into the hosts file, for a very stupid reason. [&#8230;] If the DNS entry in your hosts file [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2026-04-08T18:26:59Z","apple_news_api_id":"b8b76d44-bf40-4bd2-82c3-fa35fc51f3de","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-04-10T19:29:56Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AuLdtRL9AS9KCw_o1_FHz3g","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[447,1325,928,728,30,2742,355],"class_list":["post-51524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-adobe","tag-adobe-creative-cloud","tag-lightroom","tag-domain-name-system-dns","tag-mac","tag-macos-tahoe-26","tag-privacy"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51524"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51540,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51524\/revisions\/51540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}