What are those obscure links in the hosts file?

Question

Windows

The hosts file at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc contained a couple dozen links to obscure sites with
ip
0.0.0.0 example.com
0.0.0.0 it's some kind of clicker. I myself did not visit them, did not insert anything into the file, I usually follow the installed programs.
What was it? Did I fix the problem by removing links? And if not, how can I be saved from such a miracle?

Answer 1

What was it?

This is fine.
0.0.0.0 is an empty space. Some scripts, for example, to block ads in hosts, write 127.0.0.1 - this is your computer. Others do it smarter and prescribe 0.0.0.0 so that the browser does not break to look for a local server.

We recommend using 0.0.0.0 instead of 127.0.0.1

Traditionally most host files use 127.0.0.1, the loopback address, to establish an IP connection to the local machine.
We prefer to use 0.0.0.0, which is defined as a non-routable meta-address used to designate an invalid, unknown, or non applicable target.
Using 0.0.0.0 is empirically faster, possibly because there's no wait for a timeout resolution. It also does not interfere with a web server that may be running on the local PC.

0.0.0.0 example.com is actually an example string. To (0.0.0.0) and from where (example.com).
That is, with this line in hosts, going to example.com will take you to 0.0.0.0, regardless of what is actually happening on example.com
You can write this yourself, you can download some Unified hosts file , or you can just kill and forget.
What else was there with 0.0.0.0 and where it came from, one can only guess.