Any Tool to Block the Online Gaming Sites

[SimplySidy]

Hi community

My brother called up the other day and mentioned that his son (now 11) is spending most of his time on their computer playing online games - and as a result almost all his other activities are neglected. He neither studies nor goes out to play with other kids. And they are concerned. They do not have much knowledge of how to block sites and as such they need help.

I had tried to use a couple of the Free Site Blockers earlier but with frequent upgrades to Firefox and Chrome, these dont seem to be working the way they are supposed to. As we are from India, buying out one will be expensive for us (I know one by the name HT that claims to block these gaming sites but then it is a premium application and I even dont know if it will keep upgrading itself to work in sync with newer versions of browsers).

Do you people have any recommendations that we can look into?

 

[Sam1]

Probably physically limiting the child's time on the computer is the best option. It might be old fashioned but it does work.

You could also use something like this: http://www.opendns.com/home-internet-security/parental-controls. Changing the DNS servers won't "break" on Chrome updates. It appears that you can use it to block 56 categories of sites including game sites. It's free too.

 

[Rihtar]

This Chrome extension seems to worked perfectly for me, when I had to restrict my brother from accessing Facebook: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-site/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?hl=en

 

[SimplySidy]

Thanks @Sam and @Rihtar . I have emailed these two links to my bro and do hope that he does find them helpful.

The Chrome one looks good to me with only an issue - the site has to be manually added to the block list and that might make things easy to turn off too... Kids these days... they are smarter than many from my gen

 

[Rihtar]

Kids these days... they are smarter than many from my gen

They're dumber, but more tech savvy.

 

[wasi90lk]

I see nothing wrong with playing online games, although I must say an 11 year old should also study. Perhaps the parents must have a sincere talk with the kid.

 

[milksheikh]

I think using parental controls is the best way.

 

[Rick Ace]

Parental Controls could help place a time limit. But it will not necessarily block gaming sites, since they aren't considered inappropriate.