There is a myriad of reasons that may make you want to block some websites. For example, your kids are spending too much time on an online gaming website, your teenagers are wasting their time on social networking sites, your spouse is more interested in the news sites than in the family and many more. If you want to block a website throughout all the application on your PC, then you can use the HOSTS file to block any websites or domain. But if you want to temporarily block a website just because you do not want to get distracted by it for some time, then you can use the Minimal Site Block extension for Firefox.
The Minimal Site Block extension works only in Firefox, but for temporary blocking of sites it is excellent choice. As its name depicts, it is very minimal or basic in design. After you install this in your Firefox browser, it will not show add any new menus or new toolbar icons etc. In fact, you will notice anything new. In order to add websites that you want to be blocked, you have to open the Add-ons Manager by typing about:addons in the address bar and pressing the Enter key.
Here you can add one or more domains or websites that you wish to be blocked. You can use wildcards or just the full domain name. You can add as many sites as you want, only they need to be separated with a comma. There is also a constraint of adding only a single wild card per domain.
Once you are done adding the sites, the Minimal Site Block extension starts to work. For some users, it may not work right away and they may have to restart the browser. Now as you open one of the blocked domain names, it will block the website and show a message “You have blocked this site!” instead.
Conclusion: The Minimal Site Block extension is a very basic and simple site blocker for Firefox browser. You can specify a list of comma separated domain names and may use even wildcards and it will silently block all the matching domains.
You can download the Minimal Site Block extension for Firefox from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/minimal-site-block/.
[Note: Unfortunately, the add-on author has removed the add-on from Mozilla repository.]