Blocking webpages

Willbo

Willbo

Willbo

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Joined
28 Jul 2004
Posts
1,215
Location
Solihull, Birmingham
Is there any software or utilities available that I can use to block/restrict access to sites in Firefox and (or) IE?
 
If you're familiar with the hosts file then you can block them using that.

The hosts file is located in - C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc

Edit the hosts file and for each site put something like:

microsoft.com 127.0.0.1
mysite.co.uk 127.0.0.1
and so on

This will block each site you put in the list.

Another option would be to see if you can block sites using your router or use openDNS dns servers.
 
Use OpenDNS or the hosts file as mentioned above. easiest way really.

If it is an organisation then you may want to look at getting a hardware firewall. You can use free Linux Based Software such as Untangle which you can download or order a disk for free.
 
Depending on your technical knowledge, budget and purpose a proxy server would do the trick nicely. Most also have advanced configs like blocking at certain times etc.
 
There will only be a select few websites really on one PC. So only want to do something for free so editing that file sounds best.

Couple of questions before I edit the file, do I just open it with notepad to edit? Does it matter what I put after the website or are random numbers sufficient? and do I not need to put the http://www bit?
 
Ok so tested this on a couple of websites and couldnt get it to work, but I've just tried again with www. infront of the website and it seems to be working ok now
Thanks guys
 
Willbo said:
There will only be a select few websites really on one PC. So only want to do something for free so editing that file sounds best.

Couple of questions before I edit the file, do I just open it with notepad to edit? Does it matter what I put after the website or are random numbers sufficient? and do I not need to put the http://www bit?
Click to expand...

Use Notepad to edit the hosts file and just put the www. then the domain name and leave a space then put 127.0.0.1 before each domain. 127.0.0.1 is your PCs loopback address, but it can be anything really like 1.2.3.4.

Next time you type in www.yourblockedsite.com it will trick the PC into thinking the site is hosted locally on your PC and the page won't load, as the PC checks with the local hosts file first for an ip before looking it up on external DNS servers.

You'll need to run Notepad as Administrator so right click it then select run as Administrator or you won't be able to save the hosts file.
 
Odd, it should block by domain.
Ah well, this IS the OS that had me ripping network cables apart for 2 hours trying to get two laptops networked. Only to find out that they'd been running after 10 seconds, but that windows didn't feel the need to respond to anything so standard as a ping packet.
 
thegoonden said:
Odd, it should block by domain.
Ah well, this IS the OS that had me ripping network cables apart for 2 hours trying to get two laptops networked. Only to find out that they'd been running after 10 seconds, but that windows didn't feel the need to respond to anything so standard as a ping packet.
Click to expand...

No, it doesn't block by domain. It applies names to an IP address.

For example www.domain.tld's IP address is 82.82.82.82. However their MX records point to domain.tld, the IP address of which is 82.82.82.83.

It doesn't "block" at all. It provides a DNS name to an IP address you specify, its just that if you specify the local loopback adapter as the IP address, the site will go nowhere (well, unless you have a webserver listening for that host headder value).
 
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