How to block porn (and make it actually stick)
Blocking porn is easy. Keeping it blocked at 1am, when you are the person holding the off switch, is the actual problem. Here is how to set it up so it holds.
Install a system-wide blocker rather than a browser extension, turn on content detection so it catches sites that are not on any list, and then put a delay on every way of switching it off, including uninstalling. The delay is the part that matters.
How to do it
Block at the system level, not in the browser
A browser extension guards one browser. Your machine probably has two others installed and your phone has its own. Use something that filters at the network or OS level so every app is behind the same wall.
Turn on content detection, not just a blocklist
Blocklists are always behind. New domains appear daily, and an ordinary image search can surface explicit results from sites nobody has categorised. On-device content checks judge what actually loaded rather than the address it came from.
Cover all your devices, including the phone
Most people block the laptop and leave the phone untouched, which is where most of it happens anyway. Whatever tool you use, apply it to all of them on the same day. Kellet covers Windows today and reaches Android at the end of September 2026, so a phone may need something else in the meantime.
Set the cool-down while you are calm
Decide now how long it should take to loosen a rule, allow a site, or remove the app. Two hours on unlocking and twelve on uninstalling is where most people land. You are setting this for a version of yourself who will not want it.
Make removal a scheduled event, not a click
If uninstalling takes two clicks, the whole thing is decoration. The block only means something when getting rid of it has to wait as long as everything else.
Why the last blocker you tried did not work
Almost everyone reading this has already installed something. The failure is rarely a failure of the software; it is that every one of these tools hands you the off switch and trusts you to not use it at the exact moment you most want to.
The pattern is predictable enough to be funny if it were not so frustrating. You pause it. You uninstall it. You open the browser it does not guard. You find something the blocklist never had a name for.
- Pause buttons.A blocker you can switch off in one click is a suggestion with a nice interface.
- Two-click uninstalls.Nothing sits between the decision to remove it and the removal.
- Browser-only coverage.Guarding Chrome does nothing about Edge, or the phone in your other hand.
- List-based blocking.The list is always one step behind whatever is new.
What "system-wide" actually means
There are roughly four places a block can happen, and the good setups use more than one. A network filter stops known destinations before they load, for every app on the device. A content check reads what came back and decides whether it should be shown. On-screen detection looks at what is actually being displayed, whichever app put it there. And a cool-down governs all three.
You do not need to understand the plumbing. You need to know that a tool operating in only one of those layers has an obvious hole, and that the hole is usually the one you will find at the worst possible time.
The part nobody else does: a delay on the way out
This is the difference between a filter and a commitment device. Making your rules stricter should be instant. Making them looser should take exactly as long as you decided it should, back when nothing was pulling at you.
The urge almost always passes before the timer does. That is not a motivational claim, it is the entire mechanism: you never have to say no to yourself, you only have to be slower than the impulse.
What a blocker cannot do
It cannot read your mind, and it cannot cover a device you never installed it on. A borrowed laptop, a work machine you cannot install software on, or a games console are all outside the fence.
It also will not fix the reason you are here. Blocking buys you the gap between the impulse and the action, and what you do with that gap is up to you. For a lot of people that gap is enough on its own. For others it is what makes the rest of the work possible.
Common questions
Do I need someone else to hold the password?
Will a VPN get around it?
What about incognito or private browsing?
How long should I set the cool-down to?
Related guides
Calmer water is one decision away.
Kellet blocks the distractions you choose and lets you stay accountable to yourself, or to someone you trust.