Be Honest About Which Problem You Have

Two different problems hide under the phrase blocking distractions, and they want different software. The first is enforcement: you know you will want to undo the block, and the tool's job is to make that expensive. The second is reach: certain things should not be reachable from this machine at all, and the tool's job is to cover every app without you thinking about it again.

Cold Turkey is very good at the first. This guide is for people whose real problem turned out to be the second, and it will say so plainly when the first one is yours.

What Cold Turkey Does

Cold Turkey Blocker is built around blocks that start and then refuse to be argued with. You choose sites and applications, set a timer or a schedule, and the block holds for its duration with deliberate friction standing between you and switching it off. It can put applications out of reach as well as websites, and it can take the whole computer away for a stretch if that is what you asked it for.

That is a specific idea, well executed. The friction is the feature. Anyone who has ever disabled their own blocker in the two seconds it took to reconsider already understands why people pay for it.

When Cold Turkey Is the Better Choice

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  You need a block that survives your own second thoughts. An unbypassable timed lockout is literally the product, and nothing in SplitTunnel imitates it

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  You want to block applications on a timer, not only what the machine can reach over the network

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  You want the whole computer out of reach for a stretch, rather than a list of names being unavailable

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  You are working against a deadline with a habit of renegotiating with yourself, and you want the software to hold the line for you

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  You want blocks that start and end on a schedule, without you deciding anything in the moment

If that is the shape of your problem, install Cold Turkey. What follows is not meant to talk you out of it and will not manage to.

The Other Problem: What This Machine Can Reach

SplitTunnel handles your Mac's DNS lookups, so a rule applies at the DNS layer, below the individual apps and browsers. Add a hostname under Domain Rules and the name stops resolving for the whole machine: every app, every browser, every background helper, no matter whether that app's traffic goes out through a VPN or straight over your normal connection.

There is no timer and no session anywhere in that. The rule is a standing decision: from the moment you add it until the moment you remove it, that name does not resolve on this Mac. Nothing has to be started, and nothing expires at an inconvenient time.

Coverage is the part people notice first. A block that lives at the DNS layer does not care whether the request came from Safari, from a desktop client, from a helper running in the background, or from a script you wrote yourself. It also does not care which browser you install next month, or which account on the Mac is signed in.

The One Unblock Problem, Stated Plainly

Here is the honest weakness against a lockout tool, and it deserves a heading rather than a footnote. Every rule in Domain Rules has an Unblock next to it. One click, no timer, no password, no waiting period. If you are determined to get past it, you will get past it.

What a domain rule buys instead is coverage and permanence in the ordinary sense: it applies to everything on the machine, and it stays applied through reboots and updates until you decide otherwise. For plenty of people the few seconds between a reflex and a deliberate action is the whole fix. For people who already know it is not, a lockout tool is the correct purchase and this is the wrong article.

What Else Comes With the Network Angle

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  Curated lists: two switches in Settings, Block Ads and Trackers, and Block Malware and Scams, refreshed daily so you are not maintaining those categories by hand. Individual domains cannot be excluded from them in this version

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  Per-app blocking: an app-level block cuts one app off the network entirely. It is the closest thing here to blocking an application, though it is a network block rather than a lockout, and it lifts as easily as it applies

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  Visibility: the Activity panel shows which app looked up which domain, so a rule can start from something you saw rather than something you assumed

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  Per-app routing: control which apps use the VPN and which connect directly

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  Local handling: lookups are processed locally on your Mac and are not sent anywhere to be classified

Set It Up

The Limits Worth Knowing First

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  No timers, no schedules, no locked modes. There is nothing here that stops you changing your mind

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  Software on encrypted DNS: a browser or app that sends lookups over DNS over HTTPS to its own provider bypasses DNS-layer blocking. Turn on Block Encrypted DNS in the Strict Mode section of Settings and it falls back to the system resolver, where your rules apply. It is a curated list of resolvers, so software that pins its own resolver by IP address stays out of reach

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  Machine-wide runs both ways: a rule covers every app and every account on the Mac, and it cannot be narrowed to a single app

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  This Mac only. Other devices on your network keep resolving whatever they always did

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  Names already cached and connections already open can serve a site briefly after you add a rule. Restart the app to see the block applied cleanly

The encrypted-DNS item is shared by every DNS-layer blocker, Pi-hole and AdGuard Home included. It comes with the layer rather than with this particular app.

Running Both

These two are not really competitors, and the people who get the most out of either tend to own both ideas. A lockout tool for the stretch of hours you promised to protect. A standing set of domain rules for the things that should never have been reachable in the first place, quietly applying to every app on the machine while you forget the whole thing exists.

The failure mode is buying one and expecting the other's behavior. A lockout tool will not tell you what your Mac has been contacting in the background. A domain rule will not stop you from unblocking it at eleven at night. Knowing which of those disappointments you are trying to avoid is most of the decision.