How to Block Websites on a Mac

Todd R. Brain March 19, 2024

If you are a Mac user and need to block positive websites, there are ways to do so. This Buzzle article shows you a few easy approaches to restricting website access on a Macintosh PC.
TAGGED UNDER: Blocking Websites

Users /nm./: collective term for people who use computers. Users are divided into three sorts: newbie, intermediate, and expert.
Novice Users: those who are afraid that without a doubt urgent a key would possibly spoil their computer.
Intermediate Users don’t know how to repair their laptops after accidentally pressing a key that broke them.
Expert Users: folks who smash other human beings’ computers.

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―The Jargon File

If we search us today, we’ll see more people belonging to the third category than alternative two. Add the Internet to the phenomenon of PC operation know-how, and you have a force that could take you locations. There are facets to each coin, and the Internet is no exception. As moderation is important to happiness and success in the actual international, it’s similar inside the virtual international. Nowadays, it is common to locate youngsters sticking their noses into the computer display screen, attacking the keyboard with all their juvenile fury, and spending more time on the Internet than with their parents or siblings. This, coupled with a developing trend of Internet dependency in adults and teens, leads to many people inquiring about approaches to dam numerous websites on extraordinary Internet browsers that pose distractions in the normal path of personal, professional, and social existence.

How to Block a Website on a Mac System

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There are approaches to blocking access to websites on a Mac. You can use the Parental Controls option that comes inbuilt with Mac systems or the HOSTS file to block websites.

Blocking Through Parental Controls Option

Here’s how you could block distracting and damaging websites in a Mac from the OS itself. This alternative has a limited scope as you may simplest region very particular regulations as furnished below the Safari browser.
Click on and open System Preferences.
There, you may locate the Parental Controls choice.
If multiple people’s money is owed for your machine, you may specify which consumer account you desire to enable the restrictions so that you can create a password-blocked block.
Once you’ve completed the movements mentioned above, click Enable Parental Controls.
A menu will open for you to ask you to set the control parameters for the net browser and other relevant programs you use on your Mac.

Next, click on the Content tab and pick the limit options provided for the Safari browser.
You can pick out which kinds of websites to use from the alternatives provided by Safari, or you can create a list of websites you need to get the right of entry. For the latter, you must pick out the Allow Access To Only These Websites alternative and create a list of the websites you must enter.
In this example, you will no longer be able to get Safari to open any internet site besides those mainly included that are using you inside the above-stated list. Once performed, you may exit Parental Controls and System Preferences. The OS will store the restrictions routinely.

Blocking Through the HOSTS File
If you want to block access to all browsers, that is how to go.
You will need to have Mac OS X to do this.
Launch the Terminal utility. Open the Utility folder inside the Applications folder. The Terminal software will be there. Double-click its icon to run it.
Make a backup of the HOSTS file and type do/bin/cp/and so on/hosts/and so forth/hosts-unique within the Terminal pane.

Hit ENTER while you’ve done so.
You may be requested for the machine password that you have to give.
Once this has been executed, kind sudo/Applications/TextEdit.App/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit/and so on/hosts in the Terminal.
This will cause the HOSTS file to open in TextEdit.
Once all the automated localhost strains have seemed kind in 127.0.0.1 abc.Com and 127.0.0.1 www.Abc.Com, ABC is the website name you need to block.
You can block multiple websites by adding the names/ URLs of the precise websites inside the fashion cited above.

Exit TextEdit and keep the HOSTS report when the system prompts you to accomplish that.
Run the ads cache until the flash cache command is within the Terminal to activate the new HOSTS file and flush the DNS.
This method may be reversed by using the identical steps above to get the right to enter the HOSTS document and delete the lines containing the blocked URLs.

There is every other to dam websites on a Mac―download and deploy the SelfControl application. This application is well-matched with OS X 10.5 and above and efficaciously blocks any internet site or mail server (each incoming and outgoing) for a specific period. This procedure can’t be undone and can be done by tinging your PC. The simplest way to regain the right of entry to the blocked websites is to attend out the timer. In a way, this technique is better than the OS-level and password-included blocks, as while you have the important thing to unlock, it hardly makes the experience position up barricades.