Reputation: 56715
I need a way to programaticaly block and then later unblock specific websites based on their domain names. I only need to block browsers (so http & https would be sufficient, I guess?) but not just Internet Explorer, it should also work for anyone trying to run Chrome or Firefox too.
This needs to work on Windows XP and be usable from a .NET program (Vb.net or C#).
(ps., I had found this question: How to unblock website which is blocked, using C#? which seems to be saying the same thing, however at the time I could not understand it. Now I see it, thanks all.) Thanks,
Upvotes: 2
Views: 3131
Reputation: 21555
First off, know that you need to be an Administrator to do this stuff.
Well, you can just add a line to the hosts file in ( c:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts ) with the site you want, such as:
127.0.0.1 www.example.com
After that is done, just run the following command:
ipconfig /flushdns
Some web browsers, including Firefox, will also have to be restarted as well.
To unblock a blocked site, just delete it's entry from the hosts file, or place a # sign at the beginning of it.
Upvotes: 1
Reputation: 5964
This line in the hosts file will redirect to localhost. Though I have nothing against Nascar ;)
127.0.0.1 www.nascar.com
Block websites using a hosts file.
Upvotes: 4
Reputation: 1801
You could add entries to the Hosts.ini file to achieve this. It would only work on Windows. Have a look here link text
Upvotes: 1
Reputation: 1049
A down and dirty way would be to dynamically update the hosts file.
c:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
Upvotes: 1