about:blank

A helpful Safari extension: about:blank, which enables the user to block individual websites. Just 99¢.

I turned to about:blank after editing the Mac Hosts file to try to block access to the New York Times Sudoku pages. Five times I went through the necessary steps. Five times nothing changed. But about:blank did the trick.

In recent weeks, Sudoku has now and then turned into a terrible time-waster for me. I don’t like the game, which feels to me more like an exercise in especially tedious proofreading. Still, I can’t help myself: if the puzzle is there (and it is), I feel compelled to solve, and mess up, and try again, &c.

I’m not sure what explains the problems some App Store reviews of about:blank describe. All I know is that I can’t play Sudoku, which is fine with me.

[I know of course that the Times Sudoku puzzles are the only such puzzles online, so I fear no danger elsewhere. There are any number of free extensions to block individual websites in Chrome.]