Dangers of editing your host file

Many years ago editing the host file was the most effective way to block ads.
Also many years ago some sites weren't functional and reachable anymore and
it turned out it had something to do with the adapted hosts file, which I had totally forgottenabout;in linux it is etc/hosts.
Because I couldn't get the adblock.py for uzbl to work I decided to use the host file again.
See: http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/
Just copy the list of the to be blocked sites in your host file.
Hopefully I will think about it when I will get some trouble with accessing sites.
But it always better than using a proxy which can really make your internet a lot slower.