Needed: blocking software.

March 18, 2005 12:17 PM

Looking for website blocking software. Suggestions?

I'm looking for something simple and (more importantly) free that will only block websites I wish to block - not all pornography or questionable websites - and works with Windows 98. If there's a Mozilla extension that fits the bill, even better. Any suggestions? Heard of anything like this available?

posted by itchie to computers & internet (2 comments total)

If you already have AdBlock for Mozilla/Firefox, you can simply turn on Site Blocking (Under AdBlock Options in the Preferences Window) and add the names of the sites to the list. AdBlock wasn't created for this though, but I use it sometimes by adding *metafilter* and *bloglines* when I need to get work done. It simply makes the webbrowser do nothing when you try to navigate to those sites.
posted by ALongDecember at 12:26 PM on March 18, 2005

You could add an entry to your HOSTS file that contains the site's domain name. For Windows 98, the file is at C:\Windows\hosts

Open it with a text editor, and at the bottom, add an entry like:

127.0.0.1 bannedsite.com


This will override the normal DNS lookup for bannedsite.com, instead redirecting all requests to your local system, which doesn't host bannedsite.com, so you'll get an error. This does not stop someone from entering the actual IP address of bannedsite.com into a browser to get to it, but this is a simple method and requires no extra software.
posted by odinsdream at 12:43 PM on March 18, 2005