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that's not how /etc/hosts works. the domain listed in /etc/hosts (example.com) will point to 0.0.0.0 (or 127.0.0.1)... you'll never even make it to the server so you won't get the redirect.

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Oops, you're right. I discovered that it was my browser that was "helpfully" adding www in front of lots of domains I had blocked in /etc/hosts. For instance, if I blocked example.com, my browser would automatically try www.example.com (which might then redirect to something else entirely).

In my case, I'm using Firefox. I can stop this behavior by setting "browser.fixup.alternate.enabled" to "false" in about:config.

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