Take control by blocking the websites you don’t want to be accessible from your PC

Imagine just for a moment that you have a very important assignment due tomorrow. As you open your laptop and get connected to the internet, you start browsing Facebook for the updates or start looking for your favorite dress on the various online websites. Without even being aware of the fact that you have spent hours on these websites, you count the number of words you have written for your assignment, and that’s when panic strikes. Now you can easily block many websites which distract you while you are doing your important tasks. Also this feature helps you to restrict your children from the content you don’t want them to access.

Now Block Specific Websites on your PC with Windows Hosts file

1. In the first step, open the Windows Explorer and go to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc. If your Windows is not installed on C drive, then substitute the letter C with the drive letter.
2. In the second step, you need to double click the hosts and select Notepad when there is a prompt to select the program. If you are unable to get the prompt or the file opens in a different program, then open Notepad and click the file and Open within Notepad.
3. Now put your cursor on the last line which looks something like 127.0.0.1 localhost and then press Enter to create a new line.
4. Now comes the most important step which includes typing 127.0.0.1 and pressing spacebar and then the name of the website you need to block. For example if you need to block Youtube, type 127.0.0.1 www.youtube.com and Youtube gets blocked.
5. Similarly you can add other websites too with 127.0.0.1 prefaced before and a space also. Now you can block as many websites you need to block
6. After this, click on File and Save your changes. Don’t worry about any warnings from the antimalware software which may be caused due to editing of your hosts file. Dismiss these warnings and move to the next step.
7. This last step is the testing step. Close all the open browser windows and reopen a new browser window to test your edits. Ideally the blocked websites should not be displayed in the browser from now on. You should get a blank page when you try to access any of the websites you have put in your blocked list.

Blocking a Website based on User or Time of the Day using Router Settings

If you don’t want to block your website at all the times in the day and for all the users, you can add more control and block the website selectively with these simple steps with your Router. Router is a wonderful tool which gives you great control over the blocking process and makes it really easy for you to block websites according to the users or time of the day.

1. Open your browser window and put your router’s IP address in the address bar. For your router’s IP address, refer to your router documentation or try entering a common IP address such as 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.2.1 or 192.168.0.1
2. Now enter your username or password. If you don’t know the default username or password and you haven’t changed the defaults, then go to Default Routers Passwords page to find it.
3. Now browse the section where there is a way to block websites and access during certain time of the day. Normally the section names may vary but you’ll find your way by searching for a section with name like Access Restrictions or similar to it.
4. Now the last step involves entering all the details and the users you want to restrict, and finally save all the changes. All the documentation will be provided to you with Router’s paper or electronic documentation.

Blocking all of the Facebook’s Domains

If you want to block all Facebook’s domains, simply blocking Facebook.com will not work. You need to type *.facebook.com in your hosts file and your job will be done.

Word of Caution

Just a word of caution before editing your hosts file: Take a back up of your hosts files before editing them.