Q:

Personal Internet use monitoring

How could a (Windows) desktop application be created to monitor the amount of time spent on a particular website?
My first idea was to play with the Host file to intercept requests, log, and proxy.  This feels a bit clunky; and I suspect my program would look like malware.
I feel like there is a smarter way? Any ideas?

A:

There is a tool similar to what you are looking for called K-9 Web Protection. It is more used for parents to monitor what their kids are up to when hooked up to the internet. I have installed this for my niece's computer with good results and praises as it blocks, content filter, restrict internet times. This may be OTT for your needs but worth a shot as you can see what sites were visited.
The other, is to use a dedicated firewall monitoring solution such as IPCOP which is a Linux based distribution with a sole purpose in providing a proxy, stateful packet inspection (SPI) firewall, Intrusion Detection System (IDS).
Hope this helps,
Best regards,
Tom.

A:

Route the traffic through a scriptable proxy and change the browser settings to point to that proxy.

