Hardware to block website

[jjohnston7]

I have a network of 10 computers. I want to block access to specific web sites on only 2 of them. I can't set them up to be blocked on the main router. Is there a hub or something I can buy that has a way to do this? I wan't them to still be able to access shared files and everything else on my network. Just want to block a few sites.

 

[Celegorm]

I'm not sure of any simple firewall that can do this for only two computers that is a hardware solution and cheap.

What you might want to look into is get a second router. Take an Ethernet cable from your current router and plug into the "Internet" or "WAN" port on the new router then configure the new router to block the sites you want. This way, anything connected to the second router's LAN ports or wireless will not have access to those sites while the other computers still do.

 

[jjohnston7]

But wouldn't that lose them shared folders too from the rest of the network?

 

[Celegorm]

Oh crap, didn't see that requirement sorry.

Maybe. I've had luck in the past without changing anything when the SEI firewall was disabled. That was on a linksys router where the firmware would still allow website blocking without it's anti-hacker firewall. On other routers I'm not so sure if that'd work.

 

[lhuser]

I'd say to get a firewall or a PC and set it up with Smoothwall, connect it to the router, setup a switch and connect the selected PCs. Block the sites with the firewall machine/PC and it should be fine.

Cheaper is to go with the parental controls or something that resembles this and block them. AFAIK, non-admin users won't be able to undo the work.

 

[threadmark]

I'd say to get a firewall or a PC and set it up with Smoothwall, connect it to the router, setup a switch and connect the selected PCs. Block the sites with the firewall machine/PC and it should be fine.

Cheaper is to go with the parental controls or something that resembles this and block them. AFAIK, non-admin users won't be able to undo the work.

good software

 

[The Trickstarrr]

Open CMD on the 2 computers you do not wish to have full access and type this
echo 127.0.0.1 Welcome to Facebook - Log In, Sign Up or Learn More >> "Hosts"
just replace Welcome to Facebook - Log In, Sign Up or Learn More with the website that you want to be unvisited. All variations of the URL, this will locally block that computer from visiting the website, free, no hardware required.

---------- Post added at 04:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:21 PM ----------

Correction* where it says Welcome to Facebook - Log In, Sign Up or Learn More ity is ment to have a URL saying w w w. facebook .c.om

 

[lhamil64]

Open CMD on the 2 computers you do not wish to have full access and type this
echo 127.0.0.1 Welcome to Facebook - Log In, Sign Up or Learn More >> "Hosts"
just replace Welcome to Facebook - Log In, Sign Up or Learn More with the website that you want to be unvisited. All variations of the URL, this will locally block that computer from visiting the website, free, no hardware required.

---------- Post added at 04:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:21 PM ----------

Correction* where it says Welcome to Facebook - Log In, Sign Up or Learn More ity is ment to have a URL saying w w w. facebook .c.om

I was going to suggest this as well. To expand on this answer:
The hosts file is a file where you can kind of make your own local DNS. You type in an IP address and a domain name, and that domain will now redirect to the IP address instead of the one it would get from your regular DNS server. If the above method is too difficult, here's an alternative method.
Go to the root drive (most likely C. Browse to windows\system32\drivers\etc\. Open the "hosts" file with Notepad. Add the following at the end of the file:

127.0.0.1 [B]url here[/B]

This will redirect your specified URL to the local computer's IP address. Unless a web server is running on that computer, it will just show a blank page.