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How to Block Facebook – 3 ways for you to choose from

There are a lot of reasons why one might want to block facebook. As with any other social network Facebook can be a source of problems.  Employers will see decreased productivity from their employees. Parents are scratching their heads and wondering about their children’s safety and the effect ‘socilizing’ is having on schoolwork and chores.

So we want to show you how to block Facebook and avoid problems connected with it.

The hosts file method and blocking Facebook on Internet Explorer are free but imperfect. Proxy servers can be used to bypass theses security measures and a savvy user with admin priveleges can just remove these methods. Still some protection may get you where you need to be an allow some time to thoroughly understand the options available to you.

How to block Facebook on Internet Explorer

1. Open Internet Explorer and click on Tools
2. Click Internet Options
3. Click on the Content tab
4. Click the Enable button
5. Click on the Approved Sites tab
6. Type www.facebook.com in the box
7. Click Never and then OK
8. In the appeared window type and confirm your new password
9. Click on the General tab and make sure to select Users can see websites that have no ratings
10. Click OK

How to block Facebook using the Hosts file

The location of the hosts file depends on your operation system.
Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Windows 2000  C:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Note!

Make a backup of the hosts file and put it somewhere safe, in case you mess up.

1. Open the hosts file using Notepad or other plain text editor. Windows 7 Users must run notepad as an administrator, Otherwise you will not be able to overwrite the hosts file.
2.    Click start > type Notepad into search box > right click on notepad search result > select run as administrator.
Next select Open from the file menu > Navigate to the hosts file location > open the file > Paste the following lines at the end of the hosts file

# block facebook
127.0.0.1 facebook.com

Just keep in mind that any website you put on one of these lines will be blocked. if you wanted to block YouTube yould add this line;

127.0.0.1 youtube.com

Block MySpace add another line;

127.0.0.1 myspace.com

Get the picture? Good!

3. Paste them into the Hosts file after 127.0.0.1 localhost or at the end of the file.
4. Save and close the Hosts file. Make sure you DO NOT save the file
5. Reboot your computer to apply the changes.
6. Try to open Facebook into a browser.

How to block Facebook using your router:

This is probably the most secure way that you can block access to Facebook. Most routers have tables that will allow us to block specific websites. Many routers also have options to allow access to certain times of the day and by security group or even  user level access control. The only problem here is that there are way to many routers on the market to allow me to build a step by step guide. Consult your router documentation or contact me to discuss a remote configuration option.

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