How many websites can you block for free?

It depends on the extension. Focuh, StayFocusd, and LeechBlock NG let you block unlimited domains on their free tiers. BlockSite caps the free tier at three sites and asks you to pay for more. If you only need to block one or two sites, the cap won't bother you; if you want to block X, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, and YouTube at once, pick a blocker with no limit.

Will a Chrome blocker block sites in other browsers too?

No. A Chrome extension only controls Chrome tabs. It can't touch Safari, Firefox, Arc, or a native desktop app. If you tend to bypass a block by opening another browser, the extension alone won't stop you. To block a site everywhere on a Mac at once, use an operating-system-level tool like the free Focuh desktop app, which covers every browser and native app during a session.

Can you block websites on Chrome on a schedule?

Yes. Most blockers let you run the block only during set hours or only while a focus session is active, so a site stays open in the evening but is blocked from 9 to 5. LeechBlock NG has the most granular scheduling. Focuh uses a self-imposed challenge model — 30, 91, or 180 days — but you control which sites are on the list and when the challenge runs.

Can a Chrome website blocker be bypassed?

Yes. Any Chrome extension can be switched off from chrome://extensions in a couple of clicks, so no browser blocker is truly unbreakable. That's fine for most people, because the point is interrupting the autopilot tab-open, not building a vault. If you need blocking that's genuinely hard to disable mid-session, it has to live at the operating-system level, like the Focuh Mac app, which doesn't appear in the extensions list.

Is Focuh free to block websites on Chrome?

Yes. The Focuh Chrome extension is free with no paid tier, no email signup, and no telemetry. You can block as many domains as you want with no three-site cap. Your blocklist and attempt counter stay in local Chrome storage and never leave your device. The matching Focuh desktop app for macOS is free too if you later want system-wide blocking across every browser and app.

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How to Block Websites on Chrome for Free (2026)

Q: How do you block websites on Chrome for free?

Install a free website blocker extension like Focuh from the Chrome Web Store, click its toolbar icon, and add the domains you want gone — youtube.com, reddit.com, whatever pulls you off task. Start a focus challenge and Chrome redirects those tabs to a quiet page instead of the site. Focuh needs no account and has no cap on how many sites you add, so you can block your whole distraction list in one pass without hitting a paywall.

Q: Can you block a website on Chrome without an extension?

You can edit your computer's hosts file to point a domain at 127.0.0.1, but it's fiddly, blocks the site in every app rather than just while you work, and is easy to forget to undo. Chrome's built-in Site Settings can block notifications and some content for a domain, but it can't block a whole site on a schedule or redirect a tab. For free, reversible, in-browser blocking, an extension is the simpler tool.

Q: Does Chrome have a built-in website blocker?

No. Chrome has Site Settings for permissions like notifications and camera access, and it has SafeSearch and parental controls through Family Link, but there's no native feature to block an arbitrary site during work hours. To block a domain on demand, you need an extension from the Chrome Web Store or an operating-system-level tool that sits below the browser.

June 4, 20269 min readFocuh

You open a new tab to look up one thing and twenty minutes later you're deep in a YouTube comment section. To block websites on Chrome for free, install a website blocker extension like Focuh, add the domains you want gone, and start a focus challenge. Chrome then redirects those tabs to a quiet page instead of the site — no account, no payment, and no three-site limit.

This guide covers the fastest way to do it, the built-in Chrome options that almost work, and the one situation where a Chrome extension won't be enough.

How do you block websites on Chrome for free?

Here's the whole process, start to finish:

Install Focuh from the Chrome Web Store. No signup, no email.
Click the Focuh icon in your toolbar.
Add the domains you want blocked — youtube.com, reddit.com, x.com, whatever it is. Add as many as you like.
Pick a challenge length. Thirty days is a sensible starting point.
Start the challenge. Any blocked tab now redirects to a local page, and a counter logs every time you tried to open it.

That's it. Two minutes, no account, no payment, no cap on how many sites you add. If you're not sure which extension to use, the best free website blocker for Chrome guide lines up the main options side by side.

Does Chrome have a built-in website blocker?

Not really, and this trips people up. Chrome has Site Settings, which control permissions like notifications, camera, and pop-ups for a given domain. It has SafeSearch, and it has parental controls through Family Link. None of those let you say "block reddit.com between 9 and 5 today."

So the built-in tools cover content filtering and child safety, not self-imposed focus blocking. For that, you need either an extension or a tool that sits below the browser. The two work differently, and the difference matters more than most people expect.

Can you block a website on Chrome without an extension?

You can, but the options are clumsy:

Edit the hosts file. Point a domain at 127.0.0.1 and your machine stops resolving it. This works in every browser and every app, which sounds great until you realize you can't browse the site even when you legitimately need it, and you have to remember to undo each entry by hand.
Chrome Site Settings. You can block notifications and some content per domain, but you can't block a whole site on a schedule, and you can't redirect a tab.

Both are worse than a free extension for the everyday "stop me from scrolling during work" problem. An extension is reversible, scoped to Chrome, and takes seconds to set up. For most people that's the right trade.

What is Focuh?

Focuh is a free Chrome extension that blocks distracting sites during a self-imposed focus challenge of any length. No account, no telemetry, no ads, no upsell, and no limit on how many domains you block. Your blocklist and a daily attempt counter live in local Chrome storage and never leave your device.

The attempt counter does the quiet work. Each time you reach for a blocked site out of habit, Focuh logs it and sends you to a calm page. Watching the count drop from fifteen attempts on Monday to three by Friday is feedback a plain on/off blocker never gives you — you can actually see the reflex fading.

Free Chrome website blockers compared

If you want to weigh a few before committing, here's the short version on the most common free options:

Extension	Truly free?	Site limit	Account	Best for
Focuh	Yes	Unlimited	None	Long challenges, no signup
StayFocusd	Yes	Unlimited	None	Daily time budgets
LeechBlock NG	Yes	Unlimited	None	Power users who want scheduling
BlockSite	No (trial)	3 sites	Required	Trying before paying

The column that catches people out is the site limit. A blocker that caps you at three sites isn't a free blocker — it's a paid blocker with a three-site demo. If your distraction list is longer than that, pick one with no cap.

How to block websites on Chrome on a schedule

You don't have to ban a site forever to break the habit. Two patterns work:

Block for a challenge. Add the site to a 30-, 91-, or 180-day Focuh challenge and let the habit fade over weeks instead of resetting every midnight. This suits anyone whose checking has tipped into compulsion.

Block only during work. Keep the site on your blocklist but only run the block during work hours or active focus sessions, leaving evenings open. LeechBlock NG offers the most granular day-by-day scheduling if that's what you want.

Either way the target is the same: the unconscious tab-open, the half-second reach you didn't decide to make.

The honest limit: a Chrome extension only blocks Chrome

This is worth saying plainly. A Chrome extension controls Chrome tabs and nothing else. It cannot block a site opened in Safari, Firefox, or Arc, it cannot block a native desktop app like Slack or the YouTube app, and it does nothing on your phone.

If your distractions live entirely in Chrome tabs, the extension is genuinely all you need. But the common failure mode is bypass-by-browser: the block stops you in Chrome, so you open Safari and scroll there instead. The extension never had a chance, because it was never allowed to see Safari.

If that's you, you have two real choices — install a blocker in every browser separately, or move the block down to the operating system. The second is less work and harder to wriggle out of. The system-level vs browser blocking explainer breaks down exactly why.

How to block websites across your whole Mac

If you're on a Mac and the bypass-by-browser problem keeps beating you, the free Focuh desktop app blocks at the operating-system level using macOS Accessibility APIs. Start a focus session and a site is blocked in Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Arc at once — plus native apps. One session, every door closed.

The desktop app also doesn't live in chrome://extensions, so disabling it takes deliberate effort rather than two clicks. Run the free extension for in-browser blocking and the free Mac app for everything else, and there's no second browser to escape into.

Can you get around the block?

Yes, and that's the design, not a flaw. Any Chrome extension can be switched off from chrome://extensions, so a determined person always can. The point of a free blocker isn't to be a vault; it's to add enough friction that the autopilot check fails and you notice yourself reaching. For most people, that pause is the whole fix.

If you genuinely need blocking that's hard to disable mid-session, that has to live below the browser, and the free Mac app is the answer there.

The quickest path

For most people the fix takes two minutes: install Focuh, add your distraction domains, start a challenge. Free, no account, no cap. If a site keeps following you into other browsers or native apps on a Mac, add the free Focuh desktop app and block it everywhere at once. Want to clear a specific site first? Start with the guide on how to block YouTube on Chrome.