Blocking the steam web-browser?

[mrjones1207]

Have any of you have used the Cold Turkey app? (the best distraction blocker imo: https://getcoldturkey.com/)

If so my question is: Since steam has a built-in web-browser that Cold Turkey can't regulate or detect is there a way to disable this web-browser or some how make the two apps compatible?

Basically the problem is that if I have CT block a website as long as I can use steam I can get around it...


If any of you know it would be a tremendous help, thank you!

[ReBoot]

A somewhat hard but surely working solution would be to prevent SteamWebHelper.exe from accessing the network at all. You can do that with the built-in Windows firewall.

[mrjones1207]

Originally posted by fauxtronic:

According to the Cold Turkey website:

Application Blocking

Games and certain other programs can be distracting. Just go to the Applications tab when editing your block list and add the executable files to block them too.

So presumably you can add SteamWebHelper.exe to Cold Turkey. I believe it's at C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\bin\cef\cef.win7x64 by default

Thanks thats a great idea! Unfortunately I can't try it out for a while (because steam itself is blocked for a while) but when I can I'll try it out & let you know if it works!

[mrjones1207]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

A somewhat hard but surely working solution would be to prevent SteamWebHelper.exe from accessing the network at all. You can do that with the built-in Windows firewall.

The problem though is then making those rules unchangeable while I'm in a block period. I would like to be able to do this without blocking a vital system component like control panel.
I'm going to try out fauxtronic's idea first & see if it works

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by mrjones1207:

Originally posted by fauxtronic:

According to the Cold Turkey website:



So presumably you can add SteamWebHelper.exe to Cold Turkey. I believe it's at C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\bin\cef\cef.win7x64 by default

Thanks thats a great idea! Unfortunately I can't try it out for a while (because steam itself is blocked for a while) but when I can I'll try it out & let you know if it works!

No need to doublepost. You can reply in one post just fine. Watch me:

Originally posted by mrjones1207:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

A somewhat hard but surely working solution would be to prevent SteamWebHelper.exe from accessing the network at all. You can do that with the built-in Windows firewall.

The problem though is then making those rules unchangeable while I'm in a block period. I would like to be able to do this without blocking a vital system component like control panel.
I'm going to try out fauxtronic's idea first & see if it works

I told you to block SteamWebHelper.exe in the firewall. Where did you get the idea about blocking the control panel? I know I haven't said anything about that.

[mrjones1207]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by mrjones1207:

Thanks thats a great idea! Unfortunately I can't try it out for a while (because steam itself is blocked for a while) but when I can I'll try it out & let you know if it works!

No need to doublepost. You can reply in one post just fine. Watch me:

Originally posted by mrjones1207:

The problem though is then making those rules unchangeable while I'm in a block period. I would like to be able to do this without blocking a vital system component like control panel.
I'm going to try out fauxtronic's idea first & see if it works

I told you to block SteamWebHelper.exe in the firewall. Where did you get the idea about blocking the control panel? I know I haven't said anything about that.

Ya but it's super old now...

Also my point is that cold turkey is supposed to LOCK YOU OUT FROM CHANGES the firewall does not do this ONLY CT DOES. So I would need to block an exe to make changes permanent (since CT only supports that and websites) which is my point.

[ExpensiveTyre_14]

hey, i know this is an old post but i use cold turkey as well. Does this block work on Steam still? I am using it but it reloads Steam every 20 seconds. I imagine its taking a toll on my GPU.

Maybe if there was some other way to completely remove Bigpicturemode. Im not tech savvy at all but i used css custom to remove discord search and some other tutorials to remove microsoft edge. But bigpicturemode seems far more complex to remove since it seems so integrated with Steam

[MoreTbagsThanLipton]

What I did is enable the Steam family controls to remove the browser feature from your account, then in Cold Turkey also block the Steam login page so you can't switch to another account to bypass the family controls (just don't log out by accident).

[ExpensiveTyre_14]

huh, didn't know steam had that feature. Yet all these programs should in my mind. I have dealt with the issue in a different way since. I have blocked "steam" using windows fire wall (advanced) and then i used cold turkey to block windows fire wall advanced so i cannot change it. The steam app games/downloads work fine but interestingly the other steam tabs show up as blanks. For Store and Community it says:

"Error Code: -138
Failed to load web page (unknown error)."

At least it looks clean and it has stopped a lot of buffering. The owner recommended doing it some other way that had the exact same result but the steam app would buffer and try to reopen a bunch.

I just access steam Store/Community and messages on the steam browser.

Anyways, thanks for your help. Cold Turkey is a pretty cool program right?!

[Companion Cube]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.