I've been using the hosts file method for years and have never had an issue with checking Google analytics. I use the "Someone who cares" link.
Aside Google sponsored links and the odd ad sponsored link on pseudo-news sites not working (due to them being tracking URLs), I can't see it ever gets in my way.
However to answer your question, these days I run dnsmasq on my home server and have my DHCP server assign that as my primary DNS. So every device (phone, laptop, smart TV, etc) gets their ads blocked as well - which is particularly good for my TV as it's bad enough having regular adverts on TV without LG pushing out sponsored content as well. So if there was a rare occasion that I needed to turn off my ad blocking, I'd just change the DNS to 8.8.8.8 (Google DNS) then switch back to my dnsmasq server once i was done (the only complication being that I sometimes need to close and reopen the browser due to that particular application caching the DNS lookup)
The nice thing about using dnsmasq is that you can import those hosts files verbatim. Which means your update script can be simple.
I used to block various domains that served TV ads for UK Channel 4, but they hosted the client and that not detect ad loading. Seems you could probably truncate the video stream, maybe o using iptables, but their ad-load has reduced so I'm not motivated to try right now.
The weirdest side effect I've had was with the Sky HD box. If it was connected via ethernet then it wouldn't power up while my ad blocking was enabled. I was able to replicate this behavior by enabling and disabling my ad blocking, so my Sky box was definitely phoning home and failing to start if a specific domain was disabled. The weird thing is it would start up fine on WiFi or if the internet was disconnected completely. So I ended up just connecting it to WiFi as my wife was growing impatient by that point!
I did intend to reinvestigate the issue; throw wireshark on a promiscuous NIC and look for what domain Sky was trying to connect to and what data it was sending. I was thinking it might make an interesting article - depending on what I find. But in all honesty I had then forgotten about it until now.
Aside Google sponsored links and the odd ad sponsored link on pseudo-news sites not working (due to them being tracking URLs), I can't see it ever gets in my way.
However to answer your question, these days I run dnsmasq on my home server and have my DHCP server assign that as my primary DNS. So every device (phone, laptop, smart TV, etc) gets their ads blocked as well - which is particularly good for my TV as it's bad enough having regular adverts on TV without LG pushing out sponsored content as well. So if there was a rare occasion that I needed to turn off my ad blocking, I'd just change the DNS to 8.8.8.8 (Google DNS) then switch back to my dnsmasq server once i was done (the only complication being that I sometimes need to close and reopen the browser due to that particular application caching the DNS lookup)
The nice thing about using dnsmasq is that you can import those hosts files verbatim. Which means your update script can be simple.