Occasionally we get asked by customers how they can keep their kids from getting to a specific website. Some people want to block certain categories of websites. Well, there are many ways to do this because there are many different browsers and internet security/sharing devices available today.
The simplest method to cause a machine to not get to a specific website is to make a simple entry in the hosts file on the computer that points the site to be blocked back at the computer itself. To do this you will need to navigate to the c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc folder and use wordpad or notepad to open the "hosts" file. If you have not previously edited the file, the last line will read:
127.0.0.1 localhost
If you wanted to block the website www.purple.com you would add a new line on the bottom of the file then add the following two lines to the file and save it:
127.0.0.1 purple.com
127.0.0.1 www.purple.com
Correctly edited, your hosts file will look like this if you have not edited it previously and only want to block a single site:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 purple.com
127.0.0.1 www.purple.com
It is important to note that this method of blocking will be effective for all browsers and all users on that computer.
For those of you that want to filter more than just one site, on one computer, we would suggest looking into parental control software such as Net Nanny.
For those that have multiple computers to perform filtering for, we suggest utilizing a firewall that has a content filtering subscription available from the manufacturer, our preference is the Watchguard line of products.