How to block content on your home router (Foxnews, Yahoo, Heritage.org, etc) (Duplicate thread)
Did you know you can prevent certain Web sites and content from even appearing on your home computers? Think about it. No more ad revenue coming from your hits for inadvertently clicking on a Web site you have no interest in promoting.
It's accomplished by adding Web sites to your home router's keyword and/or Web Site blocks. DO NOT USE THE ONES SHOWN ABOVE. You can add character sets such as:
Web Site & Content
Buzz.yahoo.com
Foxbusiness
foxnews
heritage.org
info.yahoo.com
messenger.yahoo.com
news.yahoo.com
Notice that some of these are specific and some are more generic. The shorter generic ones are more powerful, since the router will block any URL Web address with these characters in it, while the longer ones would at least require that entire string of characters to prompt a block. You can experiment with many, both Domain names and keywords. You may get some initial false positives, but that just means you'll need to be more crafty in what you ask it to block.
You'll need to be able to login to your router for one thing. There's no other way of controlling your router without that. If it's made by Linksys, Netgear, D-Link, or one of the many off-the-shelf retail types, chances are good it has a feature for adding content you want blocked. You can Google for more information on your particular router. I won't go into procedural detail. There's too many differences from company to company to list all the possibilities, other than to say, what you're looking for to login, is your router's IP address, usually 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1. Type that into the URL bar.
Be sure to SAVE/APPLY YOUR CHANGES when you are done. This will make them effective immediately.
For a complete list of sites personal to your situation, just view your Browser's cookie list. (Google that too for whichever browser you're using, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc...). Each Web site that stores a cookie within your browser is listed. Be prepared, your cookie list can be quite extensive, while your final blocked keyword list will probably be very short, with no more than about 30 separate character strings. How many, is up to you.
Disclaimer: This thread is for those interesting in such Internet features. I'm not warranting anything by suggesting this is available to you. And the fact that I posted this thread on Democratic Underground, has no affiliation with Democratic Underground in any way, shape or form. The sites listed within are suggestions. The ones you use are at your discretion.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I've been looking for ways to have Firefox block sites, but I can't find that functionality anymore.
I never knew that the electronic box that hooks us up had settings like this.
13 recs!
It makes the host file pretty big, but it's thousands of websites that either are associated with malware or scams or other such things.
I also made it a point to add a few of my own, such as blocking Google ads and a few other major ad-placement services.
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
DD-WRT is a bit too robust for my needs, but it covers everything you could possibly want.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/content/about
Maybe not at the router level, but the local computer itself: DNSKong (Free)
Pyrenean's mission is to enhance privacy and security by supplying free system-level Internet filtering software. Our filtering software supplements virus protection, firewalls and other security software by helping to avoid unwanted Internet connections. This provides protection from ads, annoying popups, potential privacy abuses by adware vendors and unscrupulous Internet trackers.
Pyrenean's filtering software is free to K-12 schools, libraries, and other child-related social service organizations as well as to individuals for personal use.
Pyrenean's dnskl (DNSKong lite) DNS Filtering program works like traditional Hosts file blocking to block connections to questionable domains. One problem with hosts filtering is that blocked connections can cause browser stalls and error messages. Pyrenean's eDexter - a local-only personal image web server - prevents these browser errors and replaces annoying ads from filtered sites with GIF images. eDexter works equally well with either the traditional host file approach or with dnskl.
Although Hosts filtering works well it has limits. An effective Hosts file is large and difficult to manage. dnskl can provide the same level of filtering as hosts filtering with a much smaller set of rules. Host filters are very specific - blocking only the exact names in the Hosts File. dnskl provides predictive filtering using only a portion of a domain name - giving you finer control over filtering without sacrificing performance.
DNSKong blocks by keyword. I use it to block the major search engines and social media websites.
Google is so humongous and expansive that it would take a monolithic Hosts file to block every single Google domain (Blogspot, Gmail, YouTube, etc.) on every single TLD. Plus, Hosts files don't block IP addresses. (For that I use PeerBlock with the "Search Engines" blocklist.) What you do with DNSKong is to set a "dummy" proxy in your Internet options to 127.0.0.1. This redirects unwanted requests to the "localhost" address, which is basically nothing. In the "named.txt" file, you enter whatever URL keywords you want blocked (there's also a "pass.txt" file that functions as a whitelist). My blocklist has things like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram (etc.) That it operates system-wide through your network adapter means that all your browsers will block the same websites. It's not just specific to, say, Firefox, which it would be with an add-on like AdBlock Plus or ProCon Latte Content Filter.
At least the way I've set it, it can be a little overzealous (or maybe that's just me?), and sometimes sites don't display properly, or load at all. No matter, as I don't even use Google for searches anyway; I use IxQuick, and whatever my search query is, I know I can find the info I'm looking for in another result (or open it in IxQuick's "search proxy"
. I don't use social media and don't comment on a lot of website articles anyway, so disabling Disqus doesn't bother me (much less Facebook Comments!).
I ended up blocking HuffPost because of the whole Facebook comments mess they've started over there. A few die-hards stuck around and signed up for a "dummy" Facebook account, but a lot of users left. I was one of them and haven't bothered to go back. No way in hell will I hand over one iota of personal information to Zuckerberg & co, or increase their membership count. Facebook and Huff can go &^$@ themselves.
I'm much happier already at the Underground.
