My brother spends (correction, wastes) way too much time on Facebook, and I want to make it so that anyone using my router can't access the site. How can I do this? I've got a Belkin Basic router and a Westell 6100 modem.

 

that would block it for everyone in household. why don't you just modify host file on his machine? you can learn more and get nice long host file that blocks tons of add sites etc from

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

to find out what facebook IP address is just ping it.

then add in host file new line with that address

 

that would block it for everyone in household.

My brother and I are the only ones who use my router. I don't have an FB account, so it doesn't matter if it is blocked for me too.

why don't you just modify host file on his machine?

He wouldn't let me just go on his computer for the very purpose of blocking FB. I want to do it from the router so that I can turn it (the blocking) on/off whenever I want to, without him knowing that I am responsible for blocking it. A little sneaky, I'll admit, but this way he'll only be able to use it for HW reasons and not to check up on people he will see again tomorrow in class. Is what I want to do possible or is installing some software on his machine my only option?

 

Have you considered adding a domain controller (a server) to your network? Doing so would give you complete control.

I'm a complete noob to networking, so I don't even know what that is. I do have an old computer lying around that no one uses that I might be able to make a server, if I had any idea how I'd do that. :\

 

See if you can find out more about your router. Mine is a Netgear, but I can connect to it's settings screen by typing 192.168.0.1 into my browser (and entering a password). From there I can block sites, and there's even a schedule so they could be unblocked at the weekend.

 

Same answer as Markd. Look up the Belkin web page interface, get into it, and you'll find where to block certain IP addresses. (Google is your friend.) You get in by opening Internet Explorer, Firefox, or whatever eab browser you have, typing in 192.168.something.something. Then the router's internal settings page comes up. The default passwords are on the net if you've never set a password on it. If you have, and can't remember it, force it into factory default with the reset button. Then poke about until you find the right page.

 

Same answer as Markd. Look up the Belkin web page interface, get into it, and you'll find where to block certain IP addresses. (Google is your friend.) You get in by opening Internet Explorer, Firefox, or whatever eab browser you have, typing in 192.168.something.something. Then the router's internal settings page comes up. The default passwords are on the net if you've never set a password on it. If you have, and can't remember it, force it into factory default with the reset button. Then poke about until you find the right page.

Yes, I've been to the 192.168.2.1 page. I looked around for a while but after seeing a bunch of stuff about DNS, DHCP, etc. my head started to spin. Where on this menu (see attached) should I go?

 

Where on this menu (see attached) should I go?

I don't see any options on this model to do what you want. There are a few "tricks" you could do. For example signup for a OpenDNS account, set your router to use your OpenDNS DNS servers and tell them to blacklist Facebook. But this would be pretty trivial to get around.

You could see if your router has a upgrade that includes a more featured firewall.