Online blocking with Cold Turkey

Hi all

Long-time member here, haven't posted for aaaaaaages.

I just thought I'd share some new strategies I'm using for blocking online gambling, both on my laptop(s) and tablet and phone (!) (yes I have a very tech-surrounded life). Though the most reliable blocker I've ever had is Gamblock, I had a few issues with it, and would prefer not to pay... and I've always struggled particularly with getting decent blockers for my phone and tablet - a lot of the rumoured Android versions of the classic K9 etc don't actually seem to exist. I like Surfblocker on my laptop but you can only lock it from yourself for 24 hours. So I've had to get a bit more creative. I'm posting here in case it's of help to other people addicted to online gambling who want the WONDERFUL peace of mind that reliable blocks give you.

This first post is about what I'm doing to block my laptops. It's maybe a bit fiddly but I think worth it, especially if you're someone whose gambling brain has cunningly found ways around other blocks.

Basically, for my laptops I've started using Cold Turkey. It's a productivity app, on which you can build your own "blacklists", and it's free. (Its standard blocking is of things like Facebook and YouTube but you can just delete these from the standard blacklist.) It doesn't require a password or even an email address.

Download it and create your own blacklist called "Gambling" or "Horror Sites" or whatever is meaningful to you. 🙂

Now to add the sites you want to block. Unless you pay for the Pro version you can't use wildcards (e.g. "*casino") so you have to add all the sites by name.

Nightmare, right? But no. If you go to the Gambling Commission website they have a downloadable list of gambling websites (there are over 2000!!). Download it as an excel workbook and then just copy the long list of websites that it contains - I think it's on a sheet called "Domains". Paste it into Notepad so that it's just a ".txt" file. Save. Then in Cold Turkey, go to your new "Gambling" blacklist and choose "List > Import from file", and pick the .txt file you just made. It'll pull in your 2000+ sites in one go.

Then add any others you know about that (probably illegally) allow UK gamblers to gamble on their sites. There aren't so many these days but I know a few. Also add any sites you may regularly use to "find" new gambling sites. I know plenty. Just add as many sites that relate to gambling or that "trigger" you as you can. You're going to be so happy you did. (But you can always add more later - the great thing is you can keep adding sites to the blacklist but you can't remove them while a block is in place.)

Now, it's time to get blocked. Go to "Timers". Click the calendar icon next to your Gambling blocklist. Pick a date - you can block for any length of time from 1 minute to many many years away, but I'd recommend a date far in the future. Click the "On" switch and tell it yes, do block for 5 years (or whatever). Bob's your uncle. You can't stop the blocking for that whole period.

I hope this is helpful to someone out there.

One last important note, and a plea. If you're someone who has already tried using Cold Turkey but has found a way round it, PLEASE do not say anything publicly here. You'd be ruining an important layer of my self-blocking. Same if you want to say "why not just use [X program]" - there are reasons I'm not using [X program], which I don't want to go into because I don't want to ruin X for anyone else! 🙂

Cheers

FF