How GuardianBlock works
GuardianBlock helps you stay off the sites you've decided are off-limits — starting with gambling — by putting an accountability partner you trust, not just willpower, between you and a relapse. Here's the whole mechanism, plainly.
Decide while you're thinking clearly. Let it hold later.
GuardianBlock is something two adults set up together — the person protecting themselves and the keyholder they choose. Once it's in place, it mostly just runs.
Install the GuardianBlock app on Windows
Download the signed installer and run the guided setup — a normal Windows install with the usual UAC prompt. No terminal, no PowerShell, no registry editing.
Choose an accountability partner — your keyholder
Invite someone you trust to hold your key: a spouse, parent, sibling, friend, or counsellor. They accept in their own signed-in account, so both of you opt in.
Set what's off-limits
Gambling and its funding routes are the flagship block. You can also add your own no-go domains — the sites you have personally decided are off-limits.
Your partner authorizes sensitive changes
Day to day, GuardianBlock just runs. Sensitive changes — like removing a block — become a request your keyholder sees and decides on, instead of a quiet one-click toggle.
Three parts working together, reporting health.
GuardianBlock is a local app on Windows 11, not a network filter. Each part is designed to report whether protection is in place, and each browser integration is tested and documented browser by browser.
A local Windows service
Runs quietly in the background and keeps your policy applied. It reports whether protection is healthy — in place, offline, or needing attention — so a problem doesn't pass unnoticed.
A tray status indicator
A small tray app shows protection status at a glance. It is a status light, not a switch: it has no disable, uninstall, or bypass controls.
Browser integrations
Integrations for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox apply your policy in the browser and report health. Coverage is described browser by browser, tested and documented for each — never assumed everywhere.
When you want something allowed, your partner decides.
GuardianBlock isn't meant to trap you behind a wall with no door. There's an honest, bounded way to ask for an exception — and a few categories that stay off the table by design.
You request an exception
Hit a site you think should be allowed? Send an emergency-allow request from the app, with the specific site and your reason.
Your partner is notified
Your keyholder receives the request — the site and the reason you gave — not a feed of your browsing history.
It's approved only if the policy allows it
An exception can be approved only when the active policy classifies that site as eligible. Your partner's yes is required, and it stays bounded by the policy you both set up.
Some categories are hard never-allow — gambling and its funding routes. Those are not exception-eligible and cannot be overridden through this flow, even with a partner's approval.
Designed to leave your network configuration alone.
GuardianBlock is designed not to alter your DNS, VPN, proxy, firewall, hosts file, routes, network adapters, SMB, mapped drives, or work-network settings. It protects the person who installs it — it is not a network filter, and it is not built to police a household or an employer's network.
Durable friction and accountability — not magic.
GuardianBlock is something you set up while thinking clearly so a calmer decision still gets a say in a harder moment. It adds real friction and brings a person you trust into the loop — and it is honest that this is what it does.
If you keep local administrator rights on your own PC, a local administrator can ultimately remove or bypass installed software. GuardianBlock's answer isn't to fight that — it's to make those changes visible to your accountability partner and slow them down, so removing protection is a deliberate, accountable act rather than a quiet one.
That honesty is the point. The strength here is the keyholder relationship you chose, not a claim that the software can never be touched.
See exactly what your accountability partner can and can't see in the privacy summary, or browse the FAQ for the common questions.