How to Block YouTube, TikTok and Instagram on Your Windows Computer and in Your Whole Home Wi-Fi

Many parents worry about kids spending too much time on social media like YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram, and others. There are a lot of hacks that teenagers and even pre-teenagers have invented over time: see this article for the details.

Do I need a special router to enable filter what can be opened on my home Internet?

Yes, it is possible if you have purchased a wifi router with so-called “parental controls” built-in. These models usually cost a bit more (around $100 comparing to $20-$50 routers that do not have this feature).

Some of the popular Wi-fi routers with built-in parental controls:

• Asus RT-AC66U B1 (best value)
• TP-Link Archer AX50 (required a subscription for parental control features)
• RT-AX56U (features Wi-fi 6)
• NetGear routers (please check the tech specs if it has “web filters” feature)

Is it possible to block websites like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram on your Wi-Fi?

Yes, you can do it if you have a router with a “URL Filter” or “Block Websites” filtering feature. To block a website (or web address) from being accessible you need to do the following on this router:

• Connect to Wi-fi
• Open Router Admin Panel at its internal address. Typically this is http://192.168.0.1 or http://192.168.1.1 or http://192.168.1.2.If you use the Asus router then use this link to open the admin panel on your router: http://router.asus.com.
• Enter into Admin Panel using admin login and password. Login is usually

  admin

  by default. Password is usually

  admin

  . But if it does not work then check your wifi router for a sticker with the admin password on it.

• Go into the “Firewall” (or “URL Filter List” or “Disallow List”) section
• Now add the website address into this list of URLs to block and click “Save”
• Additionally, you may want to go into the “Parental Controls” section that contains the automated filter for adult and malicious websites. This list is not displayed in detail, but you may just enable it and the router will filter most of these websites automatically.

Here is the list of URLs you need to add if you want to block YouTube, Tik Tok, and Instagram:

youtube.com
yt.com
instagram.com
tiktok.com
tiktokv.com
musical.ly

You can block any additional website by adding more domains to this list.
After saving you may need to wait until your router restarts. Then try to run a mobile app for TikTok, Instagram, or Youtube to check if the block was successful. Usually, blocking makes the app “hang” and the website open forever.

Is it possible to block websites like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram on a selected laptop to make sure these websites won’t be accessible through other Wi-Fi networks too?

Yes, you can block selected websites on the selected computer by modifying a special file called

hosts

in Windows. This file represents the list of short rules for anything that is opened on the Internet on this specific Windows computer.

To block TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram on Windows 10 computer please do the following:

• Press the “Windows” key on the keyboard
• Now type in “notepad” in the search field that appears
• This will show the search results along with the “Notepad” app (text editor)
• Right-click on the “Notepad” in the search results and select “Run As Administrator”
• This will run the Notepad app. Click “File” – “Open..” in Notepad and the Open File dialog will appear
• Copy-paste the following into the Open File dialog:

  c:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts

• Press “Enter” on the keyboard to open this “hosts” file
• Now add the following lines (copy-paste from this article) into this file at the end (starting from the new blank line!):

  0.0.0.0 youtube.com
  0.0.0.0 yt.com
  0.0.0.0 instagram.com
  0.0.0.0 tiktok.com
  0.0.0.0 tiktokv.com
  0.0.0.0 musical.ly
  

• Now click the “File” – “Save” in the File menu to save changes to this “hosts” file
• Ready! Now try to open Tiktok.com or Youtube.com in any browser on this computer and it won’t work anymore

In this article, you’ve learned how to block Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube on your Wifi and on your desktop computer. Please remember that these blocks can be removed if someone (for example, your kids) is going into the router admin panel or into the settings of the computer.

   

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