Can ABP be used to simply block access to a whole site?

[DJR96]

I've been using ABP for some time and it's great. Saves a fair chunk of bandwidth!

I'm setting up a laptop for my kids and just want to completely block anything to do with some websites, ie facebook, twitter, gmail, and some others in time.
Can ABP do this?
What's the syntax required?

Cheers,

Dave.

[mapx]

you can do what you want via HOSTS file:

http://cariblogger.com/2010/07/how-to-b ... osts-file/

[vinny86]

Yes ABP can do this.
Read the documentation link in my signature
come back if you have any doubts.

[DJR96]

Thanks Vinny. Yes I did read that documentation. And my understanding is that entering a filter of say just "facebook.com" should block it. But it doesn't stop FF from opening the FB homepage as I had expected.
I know I'm kind of brute force filtering, but I thought this should be possible. I'm sure I'm just missing something very simple.........

[vinny86]

Code: Select all

||facebook.com^

That is the correct syntax.
You can add that filter.
Bear in mind that, ABP is not designed to be a family filter, unless your kids are very young, not computer friendly and not curious at all
You should use openDNS

[DJR96]

Cheers Vinny. I appreciate the help. Even with the syntax you gave it still doesn't block a site completely like I was hoping.

FWIW I've found this:-https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... te/?src=ss

It needs refinement but does what I was hoping for. It actually inactivates links in other websites to links in your blacklist.
Maybe one day it's features will be built right into FF.

Oh, and my kids are only 6 and 7 so I've got a couple of years of innocence yet I think.
Some sites you just don't want them to access at all. Some I'll block because they'll waste too much time on and head off any addictive tendencies. Can only but try to be responsible parents.........

[mapx]

vinny, the correct answer is NO. Using ABP you cant do it. Probably you didnt understand the question.

[mapx]

@DJR96, you could try:

http://www1.k9webprotection.com/

its free

[Wladimir Palant]

You could do some things but Adblock Plus isn't really meant to prevent access to entire web sites - BlockSite does a better job here. In fact, this recommendation even used to be in the Adblock Plus documentation.

[vinny86]

vinny, the correct answer is NO. Using ABP you cant do it. Probably you didnt understand the question.

Yes "completely block".
Text still gets through even if one blocks the domain. But i told him to use OpenDNS Router level blocking

[mapx]

yeah but router level when he is trying blocking ONLY the notebook dedicated to children, mmm, doesnt working (it means are blocked all the pcs in the house). Perhaps only some special open firmware which can be configured for any single static IP of the network ...

better (and simple) that blocksite extension.

[vinny86]

true mapx. it will inconvenience the rest of the Computers in the house.
Should have mentioned that ... opendns can be set up to block only on specific computers. only change the dns settings on that computer.
Just that there is an option to go the full distance.. router level.
That block site extension doesn't seem to have very good ratings though.

[DJR96]

I'm pleased to see this has turned into some good discussion.

BlockSite is the sort of simple extension I was looking for. I'd guess it would suit many others too.

When I say it needs a bit of refinement, any probably the reason for it's mediocre ratings, is that it features a "blacklist" and a "whitelist". What ever you enter in on the blacklist seems to automatically be duplicated on the whitelist. Given the whole purpose of the extension, the whitelist is completely superflous and indeed it doesn't seem to have any function and can be ignored. It may as well not be there at all.

Developed by Erik van Kempen, who I guess is simply too busy/not interested in developing it any further.
As far extensions go, I'm thinking it is relatively simple and could possibly be rolled into the core of Firefox. It seems like a really useful feature.
Perhaps someone in the know could contact him and offer to develop it further?

Anyway. Thank you all for your time and thoughts on this.

Cheers,

Dave.

[teoisback]

I agree with mapx, I have to say. I've used K9 web protection before and it's really great. The developer really cares about protecting children from the plethora of inappropriate web content out there. I suggest using that to setup a single computer that you want protected independent of the rest of the network. The one doing the setting up will have full control while the user could never change any settings to gain access again. With Blocksite, the user can just uninstall the add-on or change settings.

[lewisje]

By design, ABP does not prevent users from typing a URL into the address bar and getting something, even if it's just the index page with none of the included resources (like images, scripts, or stylesheets); a different but cruder content-blocking technology, Opera's URLFilter INI file, actually does block this so-called "document" request type, but it's not updateable without closing the browser, and you're not using Opera anyway.

Now ABP can, say, make Facebook utterly unusable and remove all Facebook integration in third-party sites, but it can't keep people from going to Facebook itself and getting the raw text of its homepage; this is why the users ITT have recommended measures like the HOSTS file or a third-party DNS provider (OpenDNS is good for site-by-site blocking): https://code.google.com/p/jansal/wiki/HostsFile