How to Block Websites in Firefox

Over 47 % of the users use Firefox to browse the web. The browser is amazingly fast, secure and can incorporate freely available add-ons to modify it according to your needs.

But when it comes to blocking certain websites, Firefox doesn’t seem to provide much of a solution.  There is no inbuilt method to do so and you have to rely on add-ons which can be easily disabled by anyone who has spent a day or two with Firefox.

In this guide we will cover two major ways by which you can block websites in Firefox. First one is by using the using the Add-ons and other one is by using the hosts file.

Using Add-ons:

There are lots of add-ons that can solve the purpose. Here is a list

Glubble: Glubble is a parental control add-on focused at children under 12 years of age. Instead of using the concept of blocking sites, it is based on “Allowed sites”.

Apart from blocking websites, it can also remove the search results that do not match the allowed sites in Glubble. Glubble also comes with a pre-installed set of websites that are recommended as being suitable for children 12 or younger. You can delete these sites or add to them.

ProCon Latte

ProCon Latte makes use of a blacklist/whitelist system to block and permit access to websites. Its features allow you to identify specific patterns in keywords and phrases and use them to manage a list of websites.

It holds a list of inappropriate terms removes them from a web page and replaces them with “***” (asterisks).

ProCon Latte does not automatically block sites that contain profane terms. These sites must be manually added to your blacklist.

BlockSite

BlockSite is an add-on that can be automatically configured to block the websites of your choice. It also has the ability to disable all hyperlinks for blocked sites by displaying only the link text and taking away its clicking functionality.

Though BlockSite is a pretty useful add-on, it’s not a recommended for blocking websites in Firefox as it isn’t completely secure and can be easily disabled or removed.

Fox Filter

FoxFilter helps block content for essentially any user-defined Web site or criteria. You can quickly and easily block content for an entire site (e.g. Playboy) or enter custom keyword filters (e.g. pornography, nudity, gambling, explosives, etc.) that will be used to help block content for any site that contains these keywords. There are many pornography-related keywords already included

FoxFilter also includes password-protected settings and security features to help prevent it from being bypassed, uninstalled or disabled. A password recovery feature is also available.

Using Hosts File to Block Websites in Firefox

Using hosts file is perhaps the most secure way of blocking websites in Firefox.

Windows uses a HOSTS file to maintain a personal list of web addresses. When a request is made for a particular web address, the HOSTS file is checked first.  If the corresponding web address is found, you will be directed to that IP without first consulting a DNS Server.

You can use hosts file to block websites. Here is the procedure

1. Click the start Button and Select Run

2. Paste the following line and hit enter to open your host file in Notepad

notepad c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

3. Scroll down to the last line “127.0.0.1 localhost”. Do not touch this line. Instead Press enter after it, start a new line and add the following

127.0.0.1 Example.com (Replace the example.com with the site you want to block)

Follow the same procedure of other sites as well

4. Save the HOSTS file.

Now the listed sites will be blocked from your computer.

With this technique you can block as many sites as you want to. If you want to unblock any of these sites just add # before 127.0.0.1 or simply delete the line itself.

Here is a video tutorial as well.

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