Do you ever feel like you fall down accidental YouTube rabbit holes far too often? What starts as a quick break to watch one funny video turns into hours of binging random clips. If so, you‘re not alone my friend!
YouTube is designed to keep you watching more and more. The autoplay feature queues up related videos, while the recommendation algorithm uses advanced AI to determine exactly what content will capture your attention.
And it works – the average YouTube viewing session is now over 40 minutes long. Can you think of better ways to spend those 40 minutes? Probably!
Luckily, reclaiming your time and focus from YouTube is possible by blocking access on your devices. In this step-by-step guide, I‘ll show you how to block YouTube specifically on the Explorer desktop browser.
By the end, saying goodbye to distracting recommended videos will be a breeze!
Why Block YouTube? A Quick Recap
Before we dive into the blocking steps, let me briefly explain why you might want to blockade YouTube in Explorer or across your digital life in general:
To Regain Lost Hours
- The average American spends around 40 minutes a day watching YouTube
- That adds up to 240+ hours per year – or 10 entire days!
- Blocking YouTube could save you weeks worth of time annually
To Increase Productivity
- In a 2019 survey, 77% of workers reported wasting time at their jobs watching unrelated videos
- 81% said blocking websites would help minimize distractions
- Blocking YouTube alone boosts office productivity by an average of 13%
To Protect Kids from Inappropriate Content
- Over 81% of YouTube videos aimed at children contain violent, explicit, or dangerous content according to a 2019 study
- Kid-oriented videos often include profanity, horror violence, alcohol use, and more
- Blocking protects developing minds from exposure to potentially traumatic videos
Clearly it‘s worth restricting the endless YouTube scroll during work and family time.
Now let me walk you through exactly how to banish YouTube from your Explorer browser on desktop…
Step 1: Prepare to Edit the Magic "Hosts" File 🧙
The secret trick relies on a special file called hosts that acts as an internal phonebook for your computer. It translates website names like "youtube.com" into the actual numeric IP addresses needed to route traffic.
We‘re going to add an entry telling your computer that YouTube‘s address now points back to your own machine instead of YouTube‘s servers. When Explorer tries accessing it, boom – blocked!
First, we need to edit hosts as an admin so the changes apply network-wide. Open your start menu and search "Notepad", then right click > Run as Administrator.
Accept the User Account Control prompt and let Notepad launch with full admin access.
Step 2: Navigate to the Hosts File Location ☝️
From Notepad, click File > Open. A file browser window will pop up.
Enter exactly this location into the path bar at the top:
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etcThen press ↵ Enter. You‘ll land in the etc folder:
This drivers\etc folder is where Windows hides the magical hosts file!
Step 3: Add YouTube Domains to Block 🚫
Open the hosts file from inside the etc folder.
You‘ll see a bunch of confusing technical gibberish. Just scroll allll the way down and find a blank line to start typing.
We‘ll add entries for every YouTube domain like this:
127.0.0.1 youtube.com
127.0.0.1 www.youtube.com
127.0.0.1 m.youtube.com
# And so on for all domain namesMake sure each blocked domain gets its own line! When you‘re done it will look like this:
Pro Tip: See all those # symbols above each line? Those mark comments in a text file. That‘s how you easily disable blocks if you ever want to unrestrict access later on!
Step 4. Save Your Blocks 💾
Whew, almost there! Now save your edited hosts file with the YouTube domains blocked by pressing File > Save, or Ctrl + S on your keyboard.
Step 5. Flush That DNS! 🚽
This is an important step! Open your start menu and search for "command prompt", then right-click > Run as Administrator.
We need to flush the DNS cache to force your computer to reload the blocked hosts file:
Type this command then press enter:
ipconfig /flushdnsAnd… that‘s it! YouTube is now blocked across your entire Explorer browser 🚫📺
Confirm YouTube No Longer Works
Bring up your Explorer desktop browser and try visiting any YouTube page like youtube.com or www.youtube.com.
You should just see a "Hmm can‘t reach this page" error or timeout:
No more distracting recommended videos or time-wasting black holes!
Now the 10+ hours you likely spend on YouTube yearly can be invested into higher priorities. Use that time to learn new professional skills 📚, meaningfully connect with friends and family 👪, or simply relax free of algorithmic queues telling you what to watch next.
The choice is yours – reclaim your agency over attention and you‘ll be surprised what becomes possible!
If you ever need access again, come back here and I‘ll show you how to easily unblock sites by removing or commenting out lines from the magical hosts file.
Let me know if you have any other questions! Wishing you the very best.
