Looking For a Website Blocker for MacBook and MacBook Air

January 19, 2022 1:09 PM

Wanting to limit my access to certain sites What do you website blockers/suggestions do you recommend for these two laptops? One is strictly Safari. The other has Safari, Firefox and Chrome. A blocker I can turn on/off with password will work also. I can type in a random password
posted by goalyeehah to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

If you want a timer you set and then can't turn off (really, you can't turn it off), I love SelfControl (bc I don't have any).
posted by supercres at 3:01 PM on January 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

I like the old fashioned method of blocking them in the /etc/hosts

https://osxdaily.com/2016/02/29/modify-hosts-mac-os-x-textedit/

Just set:
127.0.0.1 www.metafilter.com
posted by nickggully at 3:54 PM on January 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

Freedom works well for me on my laptop, across different browsers. (The iPhone app is decent, but I can sometimes bypass it.) It requires a paid subscription - I pay about $10/month, though I think there are cheaper plans. They offer 7 free sessions if you want to try it out.
posted by Clyde Sparrow at 4:10 PM on January 19, 2022

Seconding Freedom. The lifetime subscription is one of the best purchases I’ve ever made, 50% off with a random code I found by searching online. In case you’re wondering if it works, just look at how many comments I’ve left on Metafilter over the past week and a half. I may finally be done here.
posted by betweenthebars at 7:24 PM on January 19, 2022

If you use the code EVERYDAY for Freedom you'll get 50% off for life. You have to first remove whatever coupon is in the cart already.
posted by dobbs at 8:52 AM on January 21, 2022

A "Pi-Hole" adblocking DNS server requires some technical chops to set up, but it is infinitely configurable. You can turn off certain hosts at certain times for certain computers, while blocking basically all ads.
posted by wnissen at 11:24 AM on January 21, 2022