To allow your child to surf the Internet safely using your Mac or iDevice, you will need to know how to block a site with Safari.
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How to block a site with Safari on iPhone/iPad
Within the iOS settings, depending on the version pre-installed on your iDevice, two features are available that allow you to block access to a specific Internet site.
If you own an iPhone or iPad with iOS 12 or later, then follow the steps listed below:
- Grab your iOS terminal and press the gear icon on the home screen to access the Settings.
- Once you have done this, click on Usage time and then tap on the item Contents and privacy.
- Now turn the switch next to the Contents and privacy item to ON and then click on Restrictions on the content you find below.
- In the next step, click on Web Content, select the Restrict adult websites and plugged to Add Web site you find under Never allow.
- Now, type the address of the site you want to block. This will be added automatically after clicking on Web Content in the upper left.
- To check the actual blocking, just open Safari and type in the URL of the Internet portal in question. If all went well, the word Restricted site will appear.
If you change your mind, you can delete the previously blocked site from the Web Content screen by swiping from right to left on the URL. Simply press the red Delete button that appears to the right.
If you own an iPhone or an iPad with a version prior to iOS 12, then you need to follow the steps listed below:
- Always open the Settings by pressing the gear icon on the main screen and choose General.
- Now, tap on Restrictions and then press on Enable Restrictions if it is not already activated.
- Now, tap on Websites and from the next screen, choose Limit Adult Websites.
- In the next step, locate the Never allow section and press on Add website below.
- From the screen that appears, type the address of the portal you want to block and its name and press the Done button to save it.
- To verify the correct application of the change, open Safari, connect to the blocked URL portal and see if Restricted site appears.
In case of change of mind, back in Restrictions as indicated a moment ago, swipe from right to left on the link in question and choose Delete.
How to block a site with Safari on Mac
If it is a Mac, then you can use two methods to block access to a particular address: exploiting the terminal of MacOS or the application SelfControl downloadable from the Internet.
Below we see the steps to follow if you choose to use the Terminal :
- Access the Launchpad, open the Other folder and press the Terminal icon to start it.
- From the screen that appears, type the command sudo nano/etc/hosts and press Enter on the keyboard.
- After entering the password to access your macOS account, use the arrow keys to reach the bottom of the document.
- After that, type 127.0.0.1 followed by the address of the site you want to block (eg 127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com ).
- Now, use the Cmd + O key combination to save the file contents and Cmd + X to close the editor.
- The last thing to do is to type the sudo dscacheutil -flushcache command and give Enter to run the DNS cache so you will have no problems.
- After closing the MacOS Terminal, open Safari and check whether the change was successful.
In the case of some websites (such as Facebook), it is also necessary to enter other addresses that can be referred to and therefore not only the main one. For example, for the social network of Mark Zuckerberg you must also enter login.facebook.com and fbcdn.net. However, we suggest you do a search on Google to find out the complete list. We also specify that this solution will block access to the website set by other browsers (eg Chrome or Firefox ).
If the terminal is a difficult solution for you, then you can take advantage of the excellent SelfControl application.
Here are the steps to use:
- Open Safari, log onto the official website of SelfControl and click on the button Download SelfControl.
- After finishing the installation, start the software and click on Edit block list.
- From the window that appears, press the + located at the bottom left and type the addresses of the Internet sites you want to block.
- After that, set the duration of the block using the SelfControl adjustment bar and click on Start to apply the change. In this case you will be asked to enter the password of the macOS account to enforce the change.