// Guide · Windows
How to block websites on Windows, and keep them blocked
You blocked the app on your phone, so now you scroll on the laptop. Here are the ways to block a site on Windows, and the catch with each.
1. Microsoft Family Safety
Free, built into Windows. It filters websites for a member of a Microsoft family group in Microsoft Edge, and with “only use allowed websites” on it can block other browsers too. The catch: it is built for a parent managing a child account. Using it on yourself means a second Microsoft account and someone else as the organizer.
Microsoft Support: filter websites and searches using Microsoft Family Safety
2. The hosts file
Free, and it blocks a site in every browser at once. The catch: it needs administrator rights to set up, it has no schedule (blocked is blocked, all day), and anyone who can set it up can delete the line again in a minute.
3. A browser extension
Quick to install. The catch: it only covers the browser it is installed in, and turning it off is one click on the extensions page.
4. A cross-device blocker
Freedom blocks sites and apps on your computer and phone together, in sessions you start, with a Locked Mode that stops you quitting a session. It is $8.99 a month or $3.33 a month billed yearly.
Aegin Desktop for Windows and Mac works differently. Your phone and computer share one Feeds window, so ten minutes on a feed site in the browser is ten minutes the phone no longer has. When the window is closed, Aegin puts a cover over the site with two choices: close the tab, or plead your case to the Judge, which can say no. The computer follows the schedule your phone app runs, and Focus Blocks you set cover the computer too.
Aegin is free to start, and the limits work on the free plan. Pro is $12.99 a month or $99.99 a year in the US, and prices differ by country.
Try the Judge first
Tell it what you want to open and why, in your browser, with no account. Then decide.
Who wrote this. Aegin makes a competing product, so read this as information from an interested party. Every claim about another product links to its source, and prices are the US prices we read on the date below.
Names. Microsoft, Windows, Microsoft Edge, Freedom are the trademarks of their owners and are used only to identify the products discussed. No affiliation or endorsement is implied.
Right of reply. If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Last reviewed 12 October 2026.