Breakups SUCK

August 26, 2009 11:01 PM

Is there a way to block a specific page only in Safari (Mac)?

My friend recently went through a bad breakup and is having trouble not viewing her ex's myspace profile. I know it's possible to block ALL of Myspace, but is there a way to block JUST HIS profile? so that if she goes to look at it, it stops her from seeing it?

posted by polexxia to computers & internet (11 comments total)

Just tell her to delete him from her friends list. Most people on Myspace only allow friends to view their profile, so by deleting him she'll no longer be able to see his profile without adding him as a friend again.
posted by OccamsRazor at 11:35 PM on August 26

This is simple. Unfortunately, I'm not really a Mac person, and I don't have one in front of me to see through the precise details, but what needs to be done is this:

(1) Find the hosts file. This is a small file that tells the internet how to approach certain web sites. Its path will be /etc/hosts.

(2) Open the hosts file with a text-editing program.

(3) Add a line anywhere in the hosts file (generally at the end) that says:

127.0.0.1 http://www.facebook.com/ex's_myspace_url_here.html

This line tells the internet connection that, when you try to go to that site, it should resolve back on itself (127.0.0.1 is the local host, so when you go to that site, instead of grabbing the page, the internet connection will just stop.)

(4) Save the hosts file.

(5) Restart & test browser - you shouldn't be able to go to that myspace page any more, though myspace in general will work.
posted by koeselitz at 11:49 PM on August 26

(Sorry, obviously http://www.facebook.com/ex's_myspace_url_here.html should be replaced with his myspace profile's address, not a facebook address. Just go to his profile; the address in the address bar when you get there is the one you should block.)
posted by koeselitz at 11:51 PM on August 26

Good instructions on how to edit a Mac hosts file.
posted by koeselitz at 11:55 PM on August 26

Thanks, I wasn't sure if the hosts file trick works on Macs, and I also didn't know you could use it to block a single page, as I've only used it for full domain blocking :)

Removing him from her friend list wouldn't help--his profile is one of the few that is still public!

I heart the Hivemind, though. You guys NEVER fail me!
posted by polexxia at 12:12 AM on August 27

Note that a hosts edit will block all browsers, even if your fella downloads and installs a new Firefox. This makes it great, but also confusing to troubleshoot someday if you forget you've done this.
posted by rokusan at 1:10 AM on August 27

koeselitz is wrong. You cannot put URLs in a hosts file. It's for hosts. It says so on the file. It's a way to map a hostname to an IP address. It short circuits the DNS lookup to do the same thing. The software that consults the hosts table is the system library functions that lookup hostnames. They never even get to see the whole URL.

Perhaps you could use a parental filter of some sort?
posted by joshu at 2:06 AM on August 27 [2 favorites]

With Firefox, you could do this with greasemonkey. Here is a way to run greasemonkey with Safari (I haven't tried this.)
posted by Obscure Reference at 4:03 AM on August 27

(3) Add a line anywhere in the hosts file (generally at the end) that says:

127.0.0.1 http://www.facebook.com/ex's_myspace_url_here.html

This will not work anywhere. /etc/hosts is for assigning your own IP to a hostname. It can be abused to "block" certain websites by having them point at localhost so that they don't go through. It has no sense of HTTP or anything like that. You can't block a certain file and you can't include things like protocol://.
posted by floam at 5:01 AM on August 27

She can do this with Little Snitch. After install, when she's setting up her rules, she can go to the unwanted page in Safari and when Little Snitch asks whether to allow the connection, just click "deny". She can then set Little Snitch to allow TCP connections on Safari through ports 443 and 80; this will allow her to continue browsing other sites as usual.

Not free, but Little Snitch is an awesome program anyway.
posted by LuckySeven~ at 6:33 AM on August 27

Download, install and configure Glimmer Blocker. Basically it's an ad-blocker which runs as a local proxy server and, unlike Little Snitch, is free. Once you have it installed, it's a very simply matter to add the ex's MySpace page to the list of blocked URLs.
posted by nathan_teske at 7:12 AM on August 27