How do you block porn from appearing on your Mac?

[JessicaBrown]

I need to block all porn contents from my Mac. My young friend uses the computer and I notice that when she is logging out, she clicks out of porn sites those are opened and tells me she doesn't know how they got there. The question I have is can porn sites pop out of nowhere and show their contents out of the blue? Should I get the internet filter for Mac to block unwanted sites? Please help and excuse my ignorance in this. Thank you.

[Stan]

One of the ways to block such websites is by using an active content filtering. It's a program or browser plugin that monitors web requests and selectively blocks them based on their content and source.

Another way to avoid such sites from appearing is to locate your HOSTS file. Depending on the version of Windows you have on your machine the hosts file can be located at different places :

For XP/VISTA/7 :- C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC directory.
For 2000 :- C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC or C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC folder

Open the file to check the contents of this file. You would be asked if you intend to search the internet for a program to open the file or if you wish to choose from a list. Choose the list option and open the file with Notepad. You can now view all of the websites that are being blocked.

To add to the list, you must scroll down to the bottom of the file and add “127.0.0.1 siteyouwanttoblock” (Remove the quotes"). This would block the site you intend to block on your Mac. Then save the file.

[genevieveack]

Well I think it's possible..A porn sites can be pop out of nowhere and show their contents out of the blue...You can block unwanted sites so that nobody can watch porn sites.AT the same time you can unblock it when you want so..

[wowfood]

I remember once in school somebody got hit by a repeating porn popup, close one window and two more open, ah the days of IE 4.

I'm not so sure about mac but there are probably a few ways to handle it at different levels.

1: Router. Most routers you can set up a blocked site list, and generally speaking a lot of router brands have approved site lists which block those sites being visted.

2: DNS: this can be done from router or computer, change your DNS to point to openDNS
OpenDNS - Faster and More Reliable Internet

When you set up the DNS you can set parental control at the DNS level, making it nearly impossible to get on to 90% of porn sites.

3: Expensive: Pay out the nose for a mac only firewall which will probably just route you through openDNS.

[Ben Stones]

If porn websites are popping up without you doing anything, it could be due to malware. Now, of course, it is widely said "Macs can't get 'viruses'", and the Apple-way of terming viruses is malware. It is possible to get malware and there has been definitely quite widespread forms of malware that has been inadvertedly installed by an end-user. A popular malware application that was widely reported to Apple was Mac Defender: Mac Defender - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. At one point it could be doing it's malicious activity without requiring installation first, but that was a later version of Mac Defender. And the malware had different name forms at different times.

However, Apple has introduced methods to try and prevent malware from being installed. Often Apple will supply updates to this "database" on your Mac which will prevent malware from being installed by warning you Apple knows this software you are trying to open, run or install is indeed malware.

However, I would recommend if websites are popping up without you doing anything in the first place, to perhaps reinstall the operating system as it is the easiest way to get rid of malware that is running on a computer/operating system. However, make sure you back up anything important first, as reinstalling will remove everything (including applications). Do note, however, while in the installation wizard, you'll need to go to the Utilities menu and select Disk Utility and wipe the hard drive first, otherwise everything will still be on your Mac if you tried reinstalling initially. Use the 'Restore' option or 'Partition' option in Disk Utility.

As wowfood has said, using OpenDNS helps towards preventing malware occurring as you will be going through the OpenDNS system, not through the standard DNS service that is set within your router. OpenDNS is free as well (with options to upgrade). I would definitely recommend OpenDNS, it's also a great way of blocking websites, category of websites, etc., if your router does not support this.

[sihost]

OSX already has parental controls.

(Instructions for OSX Lion, but Snow Leopard should be similar)

Go to system preferences and "users and groups", click "parental controls"

If you want to keep the current account as it is, use "create a new user with parental controls"

You'll probably then need to logo out then then log back in as the new user, go back to "users and group" and make the original user a user rather than "admin"

You can then turn on Parental controls and restrict over 18 content.

This is all available without any 3rd party software.

Also, if you want to restrict content without access to a specific computer you can log into your broadband wireless router settings, some allow you to restrict content as soon as it hits the router by entering specific keywords.

[Ben Stones]

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