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How To: Block, Restrict Access To Unwanted Websites - No Additional Software Needed

9:22 PM   Freddie Lore  

Not all websites are safe for kids; some portals promote sexual curiosity while others expose anti-racism and some violence of that sort. In corporate scene, there are websites that are not supposed to be visited especially during working hours. Facebook, YouTube, TumBlr, Orkut, Twitter – name them all – have been the major problems recently in schools and many other business organizations.

If you’re a mother who wishes to protect your child from bad websites or a network admin who is responsible for the network activity of company workforce, then, this short tutorial will teach you how to restrict internet access to a specific website – no additional software needed.

Block Specific Websites At School, Office Workstations - No Software Needed

Step 1 Log in to your computer as Administrator.

Step 2 Navigate through the Hosts File. Click Start > Run and type the following:
\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
Windows should prompt you an "Open with" dialog (see below). Just select "Notepad" or any other text editor and hit OK.

NOTE: To access the hosts file on on Windows 7, you may need to temporarily disable all active antivirus software first. Then run Notepad as Administrator, open the host file by navigating over here: \Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts.

Step 3 Now, let’s try to block Facebook and Twitter. All we need to do is to add the following codes below the lines containing 127.0.0.1 localhosts (if you cannot see it, create it):
127.0.0.1 facebook.com
127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 m.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 touch.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 twitter.com
127.0.0.1 m.twitter.com
Step 4 Now, save the File and see it yourself!

If you’ve performed right the procedures above, your computer should not be able to access Facebook and Twitter. If you want to block more websites (e.g. Twitter, YouTube, Orkut etc.), just access the Host File and append the domain name or web address and save.

Blocking specific websites is really that easy!

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