How to block porn on your own devices
Phone, laptop and home Wi-Fi. Written for the person blocking their own devices, not a parent. Checked October 2026.
Last checked . Family filters tested live by us. Device steps from Apple, Google and Microsoft's own guides.
The short answer
Do two things on each device. Turn on its built-in adult filter: Screen Time > Limit Adult Websites on an iPhone or Mac, and Private DNS on Android. Then hand the off switch to someone you trust, because a block you can undo in ten seconds won't hold at 1am. Pick your device below for the exact steps.
Pick your device
| Device | Fastest setup | Covers every app? | Guide |
|---|---|---|---|
| iPhone or iPad | Screen Time's Limit Adult Websites, plus Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 app | Yes, with the app | iPhone guide |
| Android | Private DNS set to family.cloudflare-dns.com |
Yes | Android guide |
| Windows, Mac or Chromebook | DNS set to 1.1.1.3 and 1.0.0.3 |
Yes | Laptop guide |
| Everything at home | The same addresses on your router | Yes, on that Wi-Fi only | Wi-Fi guide |
| Google search | SafeSearch set to Filter, locked by a family DNS | Search only | SafeSearch guide |
Why blocking helps (and what it can't do)
Most advice about quitting is about resisting harder. The research points somewhere else.
Worth knowing. In a 2017 study, researchers checked in with people on their phones all week and then tracked their goals. The people who reached them didn't resist temptation harder. They just ran into it less often. How hard they resisted made no difference at all.
That's the whole case for a blocker. Every time a site won't load is one fewer moment you have to win.
It's also why a leaky blocker is still worth having. Researchers who read 104 recovery journals found men describing their blockers as easy to get around and still useful. One wrote: "I can bypass it, but it still serves as a reminder". Even the UK's national age checks show the same pattern. After they started in July 2025, visits to adult sites from the UK fell by about a third, while VPN use nearly doubled. Even at the scale of a whole country, friction cuts a lot and never cuts everything.
Make it stick
The weakest part of any setup is you, late at night, knowing the passcode. That isn't a character flaw. Researchers who followed more than 8,000 people using a blocker saw them slowly loosen their settings, each time planning to tighten them again soon.
So set things up on a calm afternoon, and give the off switch to someone else:
- iPhone: let a friend type your Screen Time passcode and use their own account for recovery.
- Laptop: use a standard account day to day, and let someone else hold the admin password.
- Router: have a housemate change the router's admin password.
- Android: there's no passcode for Private DNS, so choose the long CleanBrowsing hostname and tell one person you set it up.
You don't owe them the whole story. "I'm trying to stay off my phone at night" is true, and it's enough.
Our test
On 16 October 2026 we ran the four best-known family DNS filters against 42 of the best-known adult sites and 12 normal ones. Cloudflare for Families, CleanBrowsing and AdGuard blocked all 42 and none of the normal sites. OpenDNS FamilyShield missed 3. Only AdGuard also forced YouTube into Restricted Mode, and none of the four blocked Reddit or X. Full results and method.
What a blocker can't do
A blocker buys you a pause. The real change happens in what you do with it.
Urges rise and then ease, often within minutes, even when you do nothing about them. In one study of smokers, the ones taught urge surfing still felt their urges just as strongly, but they smoked less over the next week. That's the skill: you notice where the urge sits in your body and stay with it until it drops.
If-then plans help too. Write down the exact moment and what you'll do instead, like "If I'm in bed with my phone after midnight, then I put it on the desk." Across 642 experiments, plans written that way beat plain good intentions.
Sherpa, the app we're building, puts both into your day, along with a Shield that blocks the apps you pick at the hours you pick. It's a few weeks out.
Questions people ask
- Can I put parental controls on my own phone?
Yes. Screen Time on an iPhone and Private DNS on Android both work on an adult's own phone. What you can't do as an adult is have someone else manage your phone remotely, so the trick is letting a friend set the passcode in person.
- Do porn blockers actually work?
They work as friction, not as a wall. People who meet fewer temptations reach their goals more often, and blockers cut down how often you meet them. Anyone determined can get around one, which is why the passcode should belong to someone else.
- Does Incognito get around a porn blocker?
It gets around most blocker extensions, which stay off in Incognito until you allow them. It doesn't get around a family DNS filter.
- Are accountability apps worth it?
We couldn't find an independent study of whether they work. Every effectiveness claim we found came from the companies selling them. That doesn't mean they don't help, only that nobody outside has checked.
- How do I block porn without anyone finding out?
The settings on these pages run on your own devices and don't report to anyone. A friend holding a passcode only needs to know you're cutting down on your phone at night. Microsoft Family Safety is built for parents, so if you use it, ask the organizer what it shows them.
- Is it normal to keep getting around my own blocker?
Yes. In one study of more than 8,000 blocker users, people loosened their own settings again and again. If you switched yours off at 1:30am on a Sunday, that tells you when your hard hours are. Move the off switch further away and look at what was happening right before.