HOW TO BLOCK A WEBSITE
There are many different reasons why you might want to know how to block a website on your computer. Maybe you want to block spammy sites or restrict what your children can access online. Blocking websites can also be used to increase productivity in the office by blocking all those time-wasting sites online like YouTube and Facebook.
There are many different options available when it comes to blocking a website. You can simply edit your host’s file, install software to block groups and categories of websites or even buy a piece of hardware that can help you restrict access on your entire network. What you use depends a lot on what you want to block and who you want to block it from.
How to Block Access to a Website
The easiest way to block a website on a computer is to log in and then open notepad as an administrator and add an entry to your host’s file. The host’s file is located in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\ and can only be edited by an administrator. To open up notepad as a system administrator, right-click the notepad icon (or other text editor program) and select “Run as Administrator”. You can open the host’s file without being an administrator but you won’t be able to save anything you edited or changed.
To block a host simply add a line to the bottom of your host’s file like this: “127.0.0.1 blockedsite.com”. With blockedsite.com being the site you actually want to block. You should also add “127.0.0.01 www.blockedsite.com” to block the “www” variation as well. This effectively points the computer to itself when it tries to connect to one of these blocked sites. After you’ve added the lines you need to the host’s file, save it and your changes will be effective immediately.
This method works great if you can be sure that no one else will be able to access an administrator account on the computer you are trying to block a website on. If someone can log in as admin they can easily remove the lines you added to the host’s file to regain access to the websites. If this is the case, a hardware solution may be better for you.
How to Block a Website on Google Chrome
Unfortunately, there is no built-in mechanism to block a website in Google Chrome. The only way to block a website in Chrome is to use the host’s file method mentioned above, use third party software or use a hardware solution for your entire network. Many people have requested that Google incorporate this feature so it’s possible it may be developed in a future version of Google’s Chrome browser.
How to Block a Website on Safari
To block a website on your Mac you will need to first log in as an administrator. Next, you can open up your System Preferences and select “Accounts” under “System”. You will need to create an extra account that will be restricted, as the administrator has no restrictions. Once you have created a new account go to “Parental Controls” in System Preferences. In Parental Controls select the “Content” tab to set website restriction details. You can block sites with inappropriate content or set a specific list of sites that can be accessed. The settings you change will only affect the account that you are currently editing.