About a year ago, Marco Arment mentioned in a blog post that he’d completely blocked the website TechCrunch from ever showing up in his browser.
I loved the idea, but didn’t know how to pull it off… until OpenDNS came into my life.
Matt Koidin mentioned OpenDNS on Twitter last week, and I put it to work immediately. Koidins are never wrong. OpenDNS’s chief benefit is making web browsing slightly speedier, but it also enables super simple blocking of any domains you want out of your life.
So now I’ve blocked TechCrunch too. I’d wish I could block more specific types of content, like Boston Globe articles written by Dan Shaughnessy, or the extremely liberally biased “objective” reporting in the New York Times and CNN, but the technology doesn’t work that way… yet. I also dream of a day where I can block certain TV shows from my cable box, to protect myself from the gluttony :-)
I sort of like the idea that TechCrunch isn’t getting my page views, although I’m sure they don’t miss me, but I really like the idea that I’m not losing any time to their drivel.
