Working from home with a family means one laptop does about four jobs. It is the office in the morning, the place you handle school forms and appointments at lunch, the thing you order groceries on, and the screen you fall asleep watching. No wonder focus leaks out of it.
A website and app blocker can help, but only if you pick one that fits that reality. This is about your own screen time during your own work hours, not about managing anyone else’s devices. The goal is to protect the two or three hours a day when you genuinely need to get something done, without turning your computer into a brick for everything else.
Here are six worth knowing about, and how to tell which one suits you.
What actually separates these tools
Four questions sort the field quickly.
- Does it block apps, or only browser tabs? Some of these are browser extensions and nothing else. Closing a website does very little if the desktop app for the same thing is still sitting in your taskbar, or if you can simply open a different browser.
- Can you still reach what you need? The school portal, your bank, the family calendar. Look for exception lists, or an allow-only mode where you name the few things you need and everything else goes quiet.
- How hard is it to quit? This varies enormously. Some tools let you end a session the second you want to. Others cannot be stopped at all once started. The right amount of friction sits between those, and it is personal.
- Does it run without you? Scheduled blocking and daily time limits mean the tool works on its own. Manual-only tools rely on you remembering to start them, which is the part that tends to slip.
At a glance
| Tool | Best for | Works on |
|---|---|---|
| Freedom | Blocking your laptop and your phone together | Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, browsers |
| Cold Turkey Blocker | When you keep talking yourself out of it | Windows and Mac |
| DigitalZen | Keeping the computer usable for everything else | Windows, Mac, Linux, browsers |
| BlockSite | The quickest possible setup | Browsers, iOS, Android |
| StayFocusd | A free option if you live in Chrome | Chrome only |
| RescueTime | Working out where the time actually goes | Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android |
Platform support and plans change, so check each tool’s own site before you pay for anything.
1. Freedom: best for blocking your laptop and your phone together
Freedom’s strength is that it treats all your devices as one. You build a blocklist once, start a session, and the same block runs on your computer and your phone at the same time. Blocklists can be set to recur, so the same hours get protected every weekday without you doing anything.
That matters more than it sounds. Blocking Instagram on your laptop achieves very little when your phone is face up next to the keyboard.
Best for: Anyone whose distraction moves between screens.
Watch out for: There is no permanent free plan, only a trial, and Locked Mode, which stops you ending a session early, sits in the paid tier. It also works by website and domain rather than by keyword or category, so sites you half need are harder to handle.
2. Cold Turkey Blocker: best for when you keep talking yourself out of it
Cold Turkey is the strict one. On Windows and Mac it blocks websites, desktop apps, search keywords, whole categories, and if you want it, the entire internet. You choose how a block is locked: a timer, a password, a time range, a restart, or typing out a long passage of random text before it will lift. While a block is running it also protects Task Manager and your system clock, which closes the two most obvious workarounds.
If you have already installed a blocker and quietly turned it off, this is the category you need.
Best for: People who have proved to themselves that a gentle reminder does nothing.
Watch out for: Computer only, so your phone is untouched. Its strictness also cuts both ways, since a locked block will hold on the afternoon you genuinely needed the site you blocked.
3. DigitalZen: best for keeping the computer usable for everything else
This one is built for the problem in the opening paragraph. DigitalZen runs on Windows, Mac and Linux with an extension covering more than thirty browsers, and it blocks desktop apps as well as websites. What sets it apart is the middle ground: URL patterns, categories, keywords and exception lists rather than one on and off switch.
Three controls do most of the work on a mixed-use computer. Scheduled blocking covers your working hours automatically. Daily allowances give a site a set number of minutes and then close it until tomorrow. And allow-only mode, which few tools offer, flips the logic: you name the two or three things you need and everything else disappears until you are done.
Enforcement is adjustable rather than fixed. A cooldown before a block will lift, a code, a date, or the unlock sent to a friend so you cannot end it alone. There is also a free plan that does not expire.
Best for: Working from a computer that is also the family admin desk.
Watch out for: At present there is no mobile app, so if the problem is reaching for your phone, you will need something else alongside it.
4. BlockSite: best for the quickest setup
BlockSite is the low effort option. Add the extension, type in the sites that eat your afternoon, and you are running in about two minutes. It blocks by keyword and category as well as by address, so you can rule out a whole class of site without listing every one, and there are iOS and Android apps if your phone is part of the problem. Settings can be password protected.
If you have been putting this off because it sounds like a project, start here.
Best for: Getting something in place today rather than researching for a week.
Watch out for: Desktop coverage is limited, so programs running outside the browser are largely out of reach. How strictly it can hold also varies by platform and plan.
5. StayFocusd: best free option if you live in Chrome
StayFocusd is a free Chrome extension built around one good idea: instead of banning a site, you give it a daily time budget. You get your fifteen minutes, and when they are gone the site closes for the rest of the day. It can also filter parts of a page rather than the whole thing, which is useful when the site itself is fine and one feed is not.
For commitment there is a Nuclear Option that locks a block until it expires, and a typing challenge before settings can be changed.
Best for: A free starting point when most of your day happens in browser tabs.
Watch out for: Chrome and nothing else. Desktop apps, a second browser, and your phone are all untouched.
6. RescueTime: best for working out where the time actually goes
RescueTime is the odd one out here, because its main job is measurement rather than blocking. It runs quietly across your computer and phone, sorts what you use into categories, and shows you afterwards where the hours went. Focus Sessions can block sites and apps for a stretch when you want them to.
It answers a question the others assume you have already solved, which is what is actually eating your day. Often it is not the thing you suspected.
Best for: Working out the problem before you pick a tool to fix it.
Watch out for: Focus Sessions are built to be ended when you choose rather than to resist you, so treat it as information rather than enforcement. It also has to track your activity to work, which is worth a thought on a shared or employer-owned machine.
Setting it up so it actually sticks
Whichever you pick, a few habits separate a tool you keep from one you abandon by Friday.
Start with one rule, not twenty. Pick the single thing that costs you the most time and deal with that first. A setup you understand is a setup you will keep.
Protect the hours that matter, not the whole day. Blocking everything from nine to five will collide with real life on the first day it needs to. Two protected hours you respect beat eight you override.
Leave the essentials open on purpose. Decide in advance that the school portal, the bank and the family calendar stay reachable. Most abandoned blockers die the first time they get in the way of something urgent, which is the whole argument for blocking distractions without making your computer unusable.
Set it up on a good day. Rules written while you are calm are better than ones written at four in the afternoon when you are stuck and looking for an exit.
The short version
The best blocker is not the strictest one. It is the one you are still using next month.
- If distraction follows you between your laptop and your phone, Freedom covers both at once.
- If you have already talked yourself out of one blocker, you need Cold Turkey’s locks.
- If the same computer runs your work and your household, DigitalZen’s allowances and allow-only mode are built for exactly that.
- If you want something running in the next five minutes, BlockSite or StayFocusd will do it.
- If you cannot yet say where the time goes, start with RescueTime and decide afterwards.
Pick one, set a single rule, and give it a week before you change anything.
Disclaimer: This article was published in September 2026 and reflects each tool’s features, platform support and plans as they stood at the time of writing. Apps like these change often, so check the product’s own site for current details before you pay for anything. Corrections are welcome.
Leave A Comment