Blocklist

Blocklist manages /etc/hosts with the goal of routing distracting websites to localhost. It also works well as an ad blocker.

Usage

You’ll need read/write access to /etc/hosts to make this work. It might also be a good idea to keep a backup of /etc/hosts, just in case. Keeping it in a git repo works for me. YMMV.

Blocklist makes a couple of assumtions about how /etc/hosts is set up. Here’s a typical dummy file:

# localhost
127.0.0.1       localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost

# disabled
# 127.0.0.1       example.org

The above shows that there are blocks of lines, separated by one or more blank lines. Each of these blocks starts with a single comment that names it. Commented-out blocks are prefixed with “# ”; hash-space.

List all blocks

$ blocklist list
localhost
ads
disabled

Toggle a block to be commented-out or not

$ blocklist toggle disabled
# localhost
127.0.0.1       localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost

# disabled
127.0.0.1       example.org

Add a domain

Add a domain to a new or existing block. It automatically adds the subdomain you specified, but it also adds the full domain and the www. subdomain. There is support for domains on a TLD that always have a subdomain. The only one that is added out of the box is .co.uk. When you need more, please submit a patch.

$ blocklist add someblock news.example.org
# localhost
127.0.0.1       localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost

# disabled
127.0.0.1       example.org

# someblock
127.0.0.1       news.example.org example.org www.example.org

Development

You’ll need rspec and fakefs to get the specs running.

Patches are always welcome. Please add tests or specs and create a github issue or send a pull request.

Authors