How do I block websites on a mac?

[PeterPan]

Someone introduced my dd to facebook, and I DON'T want her on it. I'm having trouble figuring out how to block websites on this mac. Is there a simple fix? I found the parental control settings, but it appears you can't do that to the administrator account, only accounts that are set up that way. We've been running it with just one account, auto login, but if I HAVE to I could set it up with separate accounts. So I tried that, set up an account and signin for her with parental controls, and when her account logs on it doesn't have Pages or any of the other stuff, just the baseline things the computer came with. What's up with that???

 

What am I doing wrong? Is there a better fix I'm not finding???

[LauraGB]

I hate our mac for this exact reason. We do have our regular account separate from the admin acct, but the parental controls only work about 15% of the time - even for checking logs. And, it is my understanding that if the user uses the private browsing option, nothing is recorded or blocked anyway (at least on ours).

 

I'll take our Windows based computers any day. Good luck, though. I hope you find an answer I've not yet been able to find (even with hours upon hours spent on the phone with customer service).

[Alessandra]

I presume that you've gone to the Parental Controls Content tab. If you check off the 'try to limit these websites automatically, you'll see a place to list websites you don't want. I can't vouch for how it works with Facebook in particular, as we've never used that.

 

For the applications, go the Parental Controls System tab, click limit applications and then click off the apps you want dd to have.

 

Is this a help, or have you done all this and are still having problems?

 

ETA -- just re-read your post -- you will need a separate account for dd. You can't do the restrictions you want on an administrator acct.

[myfatherslily]

When you're viewing the new account under Parental Controls>System (from the admin account), did you leave the following UNchecked?

Use Simple Finder

Only allow selected applications

 

I would think that leaving those unchecked would allow normal access to all your usual applications, but I could be wrong on that. I have an account set up for my littles, so I do have them checked because I DON'T want them playing with Word or Excel or iPhoto or whatever!

 

Then I would try going to Content and choosing Try to limit access to adult websites automatically. From there you can customize and restrict access specifically to Facebook.

 

I haven't had experience with other kids, as Laura mentioned above, so I can't speak of how effective it is when you're trying to limit in that way. It's super effective how I have it set up, though. I allow access to only 15 specific kids sites and NOTHING else will open for them. Even outside ads get blocked.

[PeterPan]

I'm wondering if the problem with Pages is because I was doing the fast user change where both stay logged in? Maybe it won't allow multiple occurences? Doesn't make sense, but anyways.

 

Use Simple Finder *is* unchecked, but that was a good guess. I explored those other things and found how to enter the specific sites. So I entered http://www.facebook.com and then went to her account to try it. She can't get there directly, but she can see the preview and hit the google cached page, meaning she still has access. Any more ideas?

[Hannah C.]

How many websites does she usually go to? I believe there is a way to make it so that instead of blocking websites, only certain sites are *allowed*. You could set it up that way instead, give her access to whatever websites she usually frequents (not including Google) and supervise any access to other websites on your account.

 

I see that your signature says that your DD is only 11 - that means that she is too young for Facebook, and if she does get an account, you can contact Facebook and have it removed. You could perhaps try to explain that to her, as well. Depending on her personality, she may respond to the fact that she's simply not allowed, even by FB's rules, to be on it. Or, she may not - you'll know which it is. :)

[PeterPan]

Yeah, I saw that. The whole process just doesn't seem to be going like I want. If I specify sites, then how is she supposed to research for her schoolwork? That just makes a mess. Yes, we had the "no facebook in our family and here's why" chat tonight. I think I made a stern enough impression, but I DON'T think that is likely to change one bit the temptation. At this stage of the game I just wanted to remove the temptation.

[VaKim]

We have this on our mac:

http://www.opendns.com/

 

You can set up controls for the whole computer. Lots of options. Works great.

[gingersmom]

Why don't you change the password on Facebook to something she does not know?

[Rhonda in TX]

We have separate accounts on our Mac. Mine and DH are protected by passwords, so the kids can't access them. We set the kids up to use the Safari browser because it will allow us to set it up so that they can only access websites that we specifically allow. You do that through the admin password, then it creates a bookmark for them so they can access it in the future.

 

I don't know all the specifics because DH set it up. I can ask him if you'd like.

 

As far as the other applications go, the kids' accounts can access those without problems. Are they missing from the applications folder, or is it just the icon that's missing?

[PeterPan]

VaKim--Can you tell me a bit more about this? Sounds interesting. How effectively does it block? For instance I can already set the mac not to go directly to facebook, however a person can work around this by viewing cached pages on google. Can opendns block that too?? That's subtler and less obvious. And does it slow down your internet connection?

[VaKim]

VaKim--Can you tell me a bit more about this? Sounds interesting. How effectively does it block? For instance I can already set the mac not to go directly to facebook, however a person can work around this by viewing cached pages on google. Can opendns block that too?? That's subtler and less obvious. And does it slow down your internet connection?

 

No, as far as I know it cannot block the cached pages. Not sure of anything that can, without blocking Google itself. However, you can only see that one page, and none of the images will show up, nor will the links work. So you can't navigate anywhere else on the site from the cached page.

As far as slowing things down, it actually sped mine up a bit. That was the original reason for using it for me. A mac-savvy friend recommended it to speed up my connection, which was very slow before. Might be different if you already have a super-fast connection. Not sure.

 

You can set the filtering anywhere from high to low, or, as I do, you can customize it to block certain categories. However, it only blocks whole sites within the category. So, for instance, you can still encounter icky stuff on sites such as youtube, etc.

[PeterPan]

Interesting, thanks for the explanation!