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Comment by caseysoftware | Hacker News Reader

April of last year, I logged out of Facebook. I didn't log back in until the birth of my son.. and only to announce it, share some pics, and get back off. As a result, I missed Facebook's entire reaction to the 2016 US Election.

Recently, I've added Twitter, HN, and a few other sites to my hosts file to block them. A few I check in on once a week or so.

More focus, less noise.

Overall, I think my life (and those immediately around me) are better for it.

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> Recently, I've added Twitter, HN, and a few other sites to my hosts file to block them

And yet here you are :-)

The worse thing about being technically literate is knowing how to get around all the blocks you put in place to stop wasting time.

My guess would be that he/she has a device that is used only at certain down times that does not have a blocked hosts file.

Non techie here. Mind sharing what the hosts file is and how you use it? I've been hesitant to use 3rd party extensions/tools that block websites. I just assume if they are free they must sell my data. Also, controlling something on local machine could be cool. I'd experiment with adding/removing sites on random timeframes, to see if that could help me (one weird trick to help you overcome your social media addiction!)

- on linux/osx its /etc/hosts

- on windows its c:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts

If you add a line in it like

     0.0.0.0 reddit.com www.reddit.com

You tell the computer to use 0.0.0.0 (your own address) for those domains, and they subsequently won't load.

Thank you very much for your reply. I magic barred it on my mac and couldn't find it. A little more help? Know the direct path? Is it global or per browser? Thanks again.

Those are the direct paths and it's system global.

BTW. 0.0.0.0 is not "your own IP", that would be 127.0.0.1. 0.0.0.0 is non-routable, so always resulting in error.

Strange. Neither sportlight or alfred can find it. (and alfred does search though system files)

The file name is just “hosts” and it’s located in a folder called “etc” - maybe that helps? I think there is also a macOS setting that hides certain system files. You may have to unhide it first.

Open terminal, type:

  cat /etc/hosts

if it outputs something that has to do with network, you know the file is there :). It might be that default user-facing tools on Mac don't look for system files?

Note for Windows users: hosts file requires admin privileges to edit. So launch e.g. notepad as admin (launching as admin should be available if you right-click on the notepad icon), and go find the file. Also remember that you need to switch the dropdown to "All files (.)" in the Open File dialog.

0.0.0.0 is the "any" address. Binding to it means you want to receive connections from all interfaces, sending datagrams to it means you want to broadcast to all hosts, and so on.

A hosts file is like a phone directory stored on your computer that is accessed prior to going to DNS on the internet to search for the ip address for a website.

The experiment you speak of is something I've now run for the better part of a decade. Adding sites to the host files does make you forget, eventually.

If you add the following to the end of your hosts file,

127.0.0.1 Facebook.com

The above will redirect all requests to faceboom.com back to your own computer (the 127.0.0.1 part), instead of trying to search for Facebook's ip address and sending you there.

The hosts file is stored in different places on Mac vs windows, a quick search will get you going.

Customized `hosts` file is the sanest approach to avoid extra tools for both blocking Ads and social media (incl those you don't have an account with but that still track you because they have their button/icon on nearly every random homepage). A great selection is at https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

I deleted the Facebook app somewhere last year. I still have the option to go check Facebook when I want, but without the push notifications I find myself checking it less and less. It's still very useful as an events aggregator.

I don't really use Snapchat, Instagram, or Twitter anymore and I didn't really miss them when deleting them off my phone. The only things I have to work on next are HackerNews and Reddit.

I've been trying to replace my break times with book reading instead of Redditing/HNing. It's still tough because my breaks are relatively short and I don't feel like I get to fully immerse into the book before I have to set it back down and get back to coding.

I did the same thing. Now am more and more enjoying going to real events nearby meeting real people.

HN right?

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