Most users of the World Wide Web daily browses many different websites. However, in addition to all kinds of resources with useful information, they have to deal with pages containing inappropriate and even harmful content, access to which must be restricted or prohibited. This is especially true when children or teenagers can be at the computer. The most reliable way to protect them from this is to block sites. There are several options for how to do this. The most effective of them is the use of a firewall, a special application, one of the main functions of which is to block sites with inappropriate content. However, if you do not have such a program (or you do not want to deal with its configuration), you can use one of the following methods.
Blocking sites using the hosts file
This option is one of the easiest. However, it requires great care, as it affects the data of your operating system. So, the hosts file is a plain text file containing a database of domain names, which it translates to specific network addresses. After you type the necessary character set in the address bar of the browser (for example, mail.ru), it first accesses hosts. And only if there is nothing there, the request is sent to the network to DNS servers. To modify the contents of the hosts file, the user must have administrator rights. To completely block unwanted websites, you need to write them to the hosts file located in the hidden folder C: \ Windows \ System32 \ Drivers \ etc. Then restart the computer - the changes will immediately take effect. The main disadvantages of this method is that if you want to rediscover access to prohibited resources again, you will have to re-edit hosts, and you may also forget the location of this file or the list of sites that you have made to it.
In this popular browser, unfortunately, there is no standard toolbar settings that allows you to block or allow access to Internet resources. However, there are positive aspects - for Firefox there are a huge number of add-ons that can handle almost any task. In this case, the BlockSite Firefox special extension, the main task of which is just blocking sites, is the best suited for you. You can download and install this application directly from the network. After the installation is complete, you need to select "Tools" - "Extensions" in the browser, find "BlockSite" in the list that opens and go to its settings. Next you need to click "Add" and add the resource that you want to deny access to. The advantage of this add-on is that it supports the ability to import a list of addresses from text files. Therefore, if you want to block many sites at once, you just need to download the necessary data from the file, and not engage in their manual entry. The reverse operation is also possible (list export). Also, this application allows you to set a password to exclude the possibility of changing the settings by another user.
To limit access to certain Internet resources in this browser, we, as in the previous case, will have to turn to the extension specially written for it, namely the SiteBlock plugin. To install it, you must first go to the browser settings and select "Extensions" - "More extensions". In the Chrome Web Store that opens, find (using the search bar) the add-on we need and install it. After the installation is complete, restart the browser. Then again we go to "Settings" - "Extensions", where the plug-in we need will already be installed. Going into its parameters, you will see a window. In it you can enter the addresses of Internet resources, access to which must be closed (field "Sites to Block"). The remaining fields can be left blank. Save your changes. To check if site blocking works, type in the address bar any of the sites you entered. The result is a browser message "Blocked by SiteBlock extension".