Cure Your HubPages Forum Addiction

In my experience it is impossible to cure an addiction unless you make its object completely unavailable or at least very bothersome to come by. For example, if you couldn't access the HubPages Forum page, would that make it easier for you to avoid it?

In all honesty, at this point of my life I too consider myself a HubPages Forum addict (HFA). I've tried various methods to help me avoid the place, and after the frustration of so much trial and error I have concluded I was positively unable to get cured.

This was when I blocked the forum page in all my browsers. Only time will tell if this complete shut-off can work or not. Right now I'm hopeful. In this hub I will tell you how to block the evil HubPages Forum page in FireFox, Opera and Google Chrome.

If you feel there would still be too much temptation to unblock the page later, ask a friend to read the appropriate section of the hub (depending on your browser) and do the blocking for you. This way you won't know how to reverse it.

Let's start with Opera, my browser of choice. Also, blocking HP forum is most easy in Opera.

1. Just click Menu > Setting > Preferences.
2. Navigate to Advanced tab, click Content in the sidebar and then click the Blocked content button.
3. Click Add and type this url: http://hubpages.com/forum then click OK all the way.

Now, when you try to access the forum page by clicking the forum link, it simply won't work. Also, typing the url in the url bar will result in a 301 redirect page only without the redirect itself.

In other words, you are free! As far as Opera is concerned.

FireFox is the most popular and most competent browser around. Chances are you are a FireFox user too. Good for you, I hate ff. To block anything in FireFox, you'll need an extension.

1. Go to BlockSite and click the install button.
2. After install, you are required to restart the browser, so do it.
3. Now, go to Tools > Add-ons and click the Preferences button under BlockSite.
4. Click Add and type the url: http://hubpages.com/forum then OK all the way out.

After this the Forums link on HubPages will no longer be clickable. Going by way of manual typing the page will simply not load. Congratulations, no more trolling the forums in FireFox!

Everyone's favorite new (weird) browser is Google Chrome. When it came out Google Chrome wasn't able to block sites manually, and even today it took me quite a bit to find an extension that does the job.

1. Go to Website Blocker and click the install button.
2. When installation is done, click the Tools icon, which is a little globe-like thing next to the url bar.
3. Here you'll get Website Blocker's settings. Scroll down to the input field and simply type: hubpages.com/forum
4. Scroll all the way down and click close.

Now, when you try to access the HubPages Forum next time, you'll get a message that the page is blocked and you are not allowed to access it. You've locked yourself out in Google Chrome. Well done!

Now, some of you might ask, what about Internet Explorer? I don't know. I have given up on Windows a long time ago. However, I did find a method that is reported to work in Windows. Haven't tried it myself, but in case you want to, here is what you do.

If you want to block the HubPages Forum from being viewed on a Windows computer, follow these steps:

1. Go to C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc and backup the hosts file.
2. Open the hosts file using the notepad.
3. At the end of the line you can see this: 127.0.0.1 localhost
4. Append the following line at the end: 127.0.0.1 hubpages.com/forum
5. Save. Close notepad.
6. Go to Start >Run > type ipconfig /flushdns

Done! Now you should be blocked from viewing the forums page.

In case you don't want to block the entire HubPages Forum, only certain "parts" of it, you can use the FireFox add-on by Edweirdo to filter out as many categories as you want. Thanks, Ed!