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How to Block Facebook Website on Personal Computer

Have you ever felt as if you can’t get away from Facebook?

That whenever you sit down in front of your computer, you end up signing into your Facebook account and forget all about the office, Blogging or academic work you were supposed to do? Not, to worry, as the same thing has happened to me and many of us. And I believe that it’s time that we put our foot down and block Facebook from our computers.

Sometimes, I really feel sites like Facebook, Twitter and many others in the same category, are useful but hampers our productivity. As time spends on these sites are countless and probably using a Websites counter time extension, may give you a better idea about how much time you spent on different social networking sites including Facebook.

Staying in contact with other people and making new friends can be considered as a good thing as it allows us to socialize and get to know about other cultures, using Facebook for hours at a time can’t be considered healthy. That is why you should know how to block the Facebook website on a personal computer. Or if you are parents and find your child spending countless time on Facebook or app like airtime, it’s in the best interest to allow limited time to access Facebook.

According to recent reports, it has been seen that using Facebook too much can hurt a person’s self-esteem. People, who use Facebook, have a lot of interactions with other people through the internet, and that is why it can be said that they sometimes lack the skills necessary for interacting with different people in real life. Sometimes it also happens that people are so engrossed in using Facebook that they forget about the work they have to do, and they spend that time checking Facebook status updates and visiting their ‘walls’. So, knowing how to block Facebook on a personal computer is a good thing.

Learning how to block Facebook on your Personal Computer is easy enough. You can do this kind of block through software, or you can do this manually.

How to block Facebook on a computer Manually

You can always buy software’s which let you set parental control or block access to certain sites or complete social networking sites group. Though, I prefer using manual way to block Facebook or similar sites. It may be little geeky for many, but I’m sure you might not like the idea to open your Windows hosts file regularly to play block and unblock game.

In the manual method, you will be making some changes to the ‘hosts’ file present in your computer system, by using a notepad.

These ‘hosts’ file is present in different locations depending on the OS your computer has;

  • For Windows NT/2000/2003/XP/Vita and 7, the file is in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\
  • If you have Unix or Linux, it is at /etc/hosts
  • Go to System Folder and then Preferences, if you have Mac OS 9
  • For the Mac OS X, the file is at /private/etc/hosts

Though the location of the ‘hosts’ file is different, the method of blocking a website on your PC is the same.

Open the host’s file in notepad and at the end of the script, simply add the lines:

  • 127.0.0.1     www.facebook.com
  • 127.0.0.1     facebook.com

Now, save the changes that you have made, and you will see that your computer won’t open Facebook when you try to access it.

If you have Windows 7, then you can’t edit the ‘hosts’ file, so just follow the method below;

  • Right-click the host’s file and go to the file properties and then move to the Security tab, select Users under Group or the user names and then select the ‘edit’ button. ‘Permission for Host Window’ will now open.
  • Select Users account and grant the permission in ‘Permission for SYSTEM’ by clicking all the checkboxes under ‘Allow’ Name and then press OK. Keep in mind that you are not to check any of the ‘Deny’ checkboxes you see.

I have told you two methods through which you can know how to block Facebook website on Personal Computer. Knowing these methods is a good way if you don’t want Facebook distracting you from your work or anyone else who might be using your computer system.

For Bloggers, I recommend to use this Chrome extension call Pomodoro,  You can block all such sites like Facebook, Pinterest or any other which works as a distraction while you are working. Simply enable the extension and add list of sites you wish to block.

Related reading:

Well, blocking Facebook or not is your choice and if you have a great self-control, you don’t need any software or use any of the above-mentioned tricks to block Facebook or any other social networking sites. My usage of Facebook is limited to managing my Fan pages, and for this, I use the Page manager app on my iPhone and iPad and avoid spending lots of time on Facebook. You can easily convert those unproductive time to productive by reading or learning new stuff.

Article by Harsh Agrawal

Harsh has written 159 articles.

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Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Puneet September 3, 2012, 6:20 am

    Thanx alot for sharing this actualy from a couple of months i am wondering bout how a school or college authority can restrict to access facebook in library 🙂

  • Aditi September 3, 2012, 2:06 pm

    Hi Harsh,
    Thanks for providing these informative tips. Well, I think with the evolution of Facebook as the best social networking site, it has gained much more importance among people. More than that people are using it and also some are there who are making the bad use of facebook. It totally depends how you are going to accept it. More importantly, knowing these tips would definitely help and it would act as the security purpose for Facebook users. Thanks for the share!!!!

  • Anirban September 3, 2012, 6:26 pm

    Hey Harsh,
    Great article.Nowadays Facebook is one of the best social networking site. It has some advantages and also has some disadvantages. I totally agree with your points when we sit down in front of computer, signing up Facebook account and forget all about our office work, academic work etc. So block Facebook from our computer is necessary in some situation. Thanks for sharing this nice information.

  • Angela September 11, 2012, 12:13 am

    When I was looking for a tool to block certain websites I stumbled upon Qustodio and haven’t changed it.

  • Ashutosh Joshi September 17, 2012, 6:16 pm

    You may also use some browser extensions to block websites to certain time period.. Its also a good option.

    • danteGT July 1, 2016, 1:24 am

      You should open notepad with right click “Run as Administrator”, then you can save your host file with no problem.

      Regards.

  • bharyn July 8, 2015, 9:48 pm

    Hi tried this to two of our computer in our classroom and it works! very well! thank you very much!

    Now i have another one that is very difficult. i tried blocking Facebook on it but once i get to hots and then add the 127…. then clicking the save button it gives me a pop out saying i have no permission from the admin. even though i signed in as the admin. what settings do i need to change so i can save that file?
    please help!

    Thanx!