Domain Blocker wont work?

There is a domain blocker tool in Linux Mint, but it wont work. I add domains but its not blocking anything. Any suggestions?

 

The domain blocker does seem to be broke ,and i dont know a fix.Depending on what you are trying to achieve though,you could use hosts file to block sites .Theres a tutorial here which works for me on mint 16
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUQZGuJ8jLM
Alternatively depending on what browser you use ,you could use a browser addon such as procon latte for firefox ,or just use dns servers with content filtering such as open dns.

 

mintNanny is just adding entries to /etc/hosts. Edit the file by hand.

 

Thankyou, I got it to work, seems you need to reboot the computer before it takes effect.

 

No, a reboot is not necessary. New entries in /etc/hosts are immediately applied. That entry might still be, e.g., in your browser cache, though.

Please be aware that blocking sites in /etc/hosts is rather inflexible. It blocks only exactly what you added therein. And wildcards/placeholders are not allowed!

Example: If you add

Code:

0.0.0.0 xyz.com

you will notice that, e.g.,

www.xyz.com
123.xyz.com
imasubdomainof.xyz.com

are not blocked. This is actually the major reason why those well-known hosts files (like that one) are that huge.

Rather, you can use two alternatives which are more efficient:

1. Install dnsmasq and add an entry like the following one to /etc/dnsmasq.conf:

Code:

address=/xyz.com/0.0.0.0

This also blocks all related subdomains.

2. A little known alternative is dnsspoof which is contained in the dsniff package. It's rather flexible as it supports wildcards like:

Code:

127.0.0.1  *.xyz.com
127.0.0.1  ad.*
127.0.0.1  ads*.*
127.0.0.1  adbot*.*
127.0.0.1  adcount*.*
127.0.0.1  adfinity*.*
127.0.0.1  adforce*.*
127.0.0.1  adimage*.*
127.0.0.1  *analyticsengine*
127.0.0.1  analytics.*
127.0.0.1  tracker.*

Note that 0.0.0.0 is not supported (contrary to /etc/hosts).

 

Great, thankyou for all that information. That is exactly what I was looking for,

thankyou.