The internet provides educational and entertaining websites. Some websites are designed for children, some websites are appropriate for children to visit, and some websites are not age appropriate for children. All these websites, including the inappropriate ones, are easily accessible to children. Parents may want to prevent children from visiting websites that contain porn, violence or other inappropriate content.
In this article, I’d like to talk about how to block access to certain websites for children and teens on a Mac computer. You will find the article helpful if your children own Macs or your family computer is a Mac.
There are multiple ways on how to block websites on Mac. All of them can be used to shield children from certain websites. Some of the methods are effective, and some may not be that effective.
Method 1. Use the built-in Screen Time
If your child’s Mac is running on macOS Catalina or later, Screen Time is available for use. Screen Time is a built-in feature. Therefore you don’t need to install any software if you use this method. But note that this method only works with Safari. It doesn’t support other browsers.
Step 1. Open System Settings on this Mac.
Step 2. On the left, choose Screen Time. Screen Time is turned off by default so you need to turn it on.
Step 3. Go to the Use Screen Time Passcode section. Turn this option on and then set a passcode.
Note that you are not allowed to set a passcode if your child has an administrator account instead of a standard account. You can still use Screen Time to block websites without setting a passcode. However, your child can easily change Screen Time to unblock websites if he or she wants to. The passcode can prevent your settings from being changed. If you want to make it hard for you child to access blocked sites, you need to convert your child’s account into a standard account.
Step 4. Choose Content & Privacy and turn it on.
Step 5. Choose Content Restrictions and then you will be presented with a dialog with multiple sections.
Step 6. In the Web Content section, you are provided with three options.
The default option is Unrestricted Access, which means a Mac allows access to all websites by default.
Click the menu to find the two other options. Choose Limit Adult Websites option.
I’ll talk about the Allowed Websites Only option later.
Step 7. Once you finish step 6, Screen Time will immediately start blocking adult websites on Safari on this Mac. But this is usually not enough. In addition to websites that have adult content, you may want to block some other websites, such as some social media sites where mature content is easily accessible.
Luckily, Screen Time allows you to manually add the websites of your choosing to the block list. After you choose the Limit Adult Websites option in step 6, you will see a Customize button. Click this button to find the Restricted list and then add unwanted websites to this list.
In addition, there’s an Allowed list, which can also be useful. For example, if Screen Time’s automatic blocking wrongly blocks some websites, you can add these sites to the Allowed list.
Now the setup is done.
Here are two tips that you may find helpful.
If you want to only allow certain websites (like some educational sites) and block all other websites, you can choose the Allowed Websites Only option instead. Just add these websites to the Allowed list.
Since this method only supports Safari, you may want to delete other web browsers installed on this Mac and prevent your child from installing new browsers. You can disable app installation in Screen Time.
Method 2. Use a third party website blocker
Using Screen Time can be a great solution. But it’s not perfect.
As mentioned above, Screen Time doesn’t work with non-Safari browsers. What if your child is required to use Chrome for some school work? Also, it’s impossible to set a Screen Time passcode for an administrator account. What if your child needs to be an administrator in order to use his or her Mac properly?
In such a case, you can use a website blocking tool that support Chrome or the admin account.
There are several website blockers available for Mac, and an app called Cisdem AppCrypt is one of the best choices.
Here’re the steps on how to use Cisdem AppCrypt to block a website on Mac.
Step 1. Download and install Cisdem AppCrypt.
Step 2. When you open this app for the first, you will be presented with a dialog. In the dialog, set a password and turn on the Launch at System Startup option.
You can turn off or on the Launch at System Startup option at any time. But it’s highly recommended to keep this option turned on all the time.
Step 3. After you open Cisdem AppCrypt, you’ll see a lock icon in the menu bar at the top of the Mac.
First, click this lock icon and then choose the Open Main Window option. Next, to open the main window, you will need to enter the password.
Step 4. In the main window, you will see two tabs. Choose the Web Block tab.
Step 5. To block certain websites, add these websites to the block list one by one.
In the Web Block tab, you will also see an Import menu. If you click this menu, you will see 11 website categories, such as Game Sites and Social Sites. Choosing a certain category will import hundreds of websites (the most popular ones) in this category into the block list, which can save you from manually adding websites.
In addition, you can add the keywords that you want to block to the block list. This way, all websites and pages whose URLs have a blocked keyword will be blocked.
After you finish the setup, the websites that you don’t want your child to have access to will be blocked on Safari, Chrome, Edge, Opera and Brave (if the latter four browsers are installed on this Mac). These five browsers are the ones that this app supports.
If your child doesn’t know the password, he or she won’t be able to unblock the websites.
Here are two tips that you may find useful.
Cisdem AppCrypt also has an app lock feature and by default locks three Mac apps: System Preferences, Activity Monitor and Terminal. To be the blocking of websites hard to bypass, it’s recommended that you don’t remove the lock form these three apps.
By default, Cisdem AppCrypt blocks all the websites and keywords on the block list forever as long as it’s running. If you don’t want the blocking of a certain website to be permanent, you can use the Custom Schedule feature. Clicking a website in the Web Block tab will bring up a clock icon. Click this icon to find the Custom Schedule settings.
Other ways to block websites on a Mac
There are still other methods available.
Use a browser extension. Some extensions are dedicated to helping users limit access to websites, and some extensions offer such a feature. The potential disadvantage of using this method is that your child knows how to turn off or remove the extension. It’s actually very easy to turn off or uninstall an extension.
Manipulating the hosts file is a common way to control access to websites on a computer. This method is also available to macOS. But it’s not that easy or efficient to use and lacks flexibility. And your child can easily bypass it if he or she knows how to do it.
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