blockr

blockr is a command line tool to help you easily block websites, and unblock them when you need them. It modifies /etc/hosts file and add appropriate configuration.

In today’s world though it is difficult to permanently block websites because they are quite useful too. And hence, blockr lets you activate and deactivate focus mode, so that you are able to access blocked websites when you are relaxing.

Installation

You can install blockr using following command $ sudo gem install blockr

Usage/Commands

block (shortcut b or -b)

Use this command to block any website you want. It can take one or more websites as input, just separate them by space. Please take care to add the exact website URL you want to block - a few websites add www as a subdomain and to block them you will have to add that to in the name of the website.

examples

$ # block youtube
$ sudo blockr block www.youtube.com

$ # use shortcut -b to block youtube
$ sudo blockr -b www.youtube.com

$ # block multiple websites in one shot
$ sudo blockr -b www.facebook.com www.youtube.com

$ # take care to provide exact URLs you want to block
$ sudo blockr -b www.facebook.com m.facebook.com

unblock (shortcut u or -u)

Use this command to unblock any website you have previously blocked using blockr. It can take one or more space separated websites as input.

It is a safe command, and does not return error if website was not blocked.

examples

$ # unblock youtube
$ sudo blockr unblock www.youtube.com

$ # use shortcut -u to unblock youtube
$ sudo blockr -u www.youtube.com

$ # unblock multiple websites in one shot
$ sudo blockr -u www.facebook.com www.youtube.com

$ # take care to provide exact URLs you want to unblock
$ sudo blockr -u www.facebook.com m.facebook.com

activate (shortcut a or -a)

Use this command to activate focus mode. This is a sort of shortcut to block all the websites you have added to blockr and remove all the distracting websites.

examples

$ # activate focus mode
$ sudo blockr -activate

$ # use shortcut -a to activate focus mode
$ sudo blockr -a

deactivate (shortcut d or -d)

Use this command to deactivate focus mode. This unblocks all the websites you have added to blockr.

examples

$ # deactivate focus mode
$ sudo blockr deactivate

$ # use shortcut -d to deactivate focus mode
$ sudo blockr -d

help (or -h)

Use this command to know more about blockr commands. You can also use this command with other commands to get command specific help.

examples

$ # see all blockr commands
$ sudo blockr help

$ # get help with respect to a particular command
$ sudo blockr activate -h
Please Note
  • Given we are modifying /etc/hosts file, you will have to run blockr as an administrator or as a root user.
  • blockr also uses special markers to identify changes done by it, so please don’t manually update entries added by blockr, use blockr commands instead
  • blockr at the moment clears DNS cache for Apple's OSX systems. Please see this link to find out command specific to your platform.

TODO

  • Write tests
  • Persist blocked & unlocked settings with activate & deactivate commands
  • Test it on Linux
  • Port it on Windows

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/abhinavs/blockr. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the blockr project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.

Copyright (c) 2020 Abhinav Saxena. See MIT License for further details.