Blocking

How to block porn on Android

7 min read · Updated 26 September 2026

If you’re trying to quit porn, blocking it on your phone is the single most useful first step. Not because a blocker makes you stronger, but because it removes the easiest path in the moments when you’re weakest: late at night, bored, alone with your phone.

Here are four free ways to block porn on Android, what each one actually catches, and how easy each is to undo in a weak moment. That last part matters more than most guides admit.

Quick answer: For a free, phone-wide filter, set Private DNS to family.cloudflare-dns.com. For something that’s harder to switch off on impulse and helps when an urge hits, use a dedicated blocker app.

1. Turn on SafeSearch in Google

SafeSearch hides explicit images, videos and sites from Google search results.

  1. Open the Google app and tap your profile picture.
  2. Tap Settings → SafeSearch.
  3. Choose Filter.

What it catches: explicit results in Google Search and Google Images.
What it misses: everything else: other search engines, typing a site’s address directly, links in apps.
How easy to undo: very. It’s the same switch.

2. Use a family-safe Private DNS (free, phone-wide)

Every time your phone opens a website, it first looks up the site’s address. A family-safe DNS service refuses to look up adult sites, so they don’t load, in any browser or app. Android has this built in as Private DNS.

  1. Open Settings. On Samsung: Connections → More connection settings → Private DNS. On Pixel and most others: Network & internet → Private DNS.
  2. Choose Private DNS provider hostname.
  3. Enter family.cloudflare-dns.com and tap Save.

What it catches: known adult sites across the whole phone, on Wi-Fi and mobile data.
What it misses: adult content inside mainstream apps and sites (social media, image search), and new sites not yet on the list.
How easy to undo: one setting. Nothing slows you down or tells anyone.

3. Turn on YouTube Restricted Mode

  1. In the YouTube app, tap your profile picture → Settings → General.
  2. Turn on Restricted Mode.

It hides potentially mature videos. It’s per-app and per-account, and it’s just as easy to switch off.

4. Use a dedicated blocker app

The free methods above work, but they share one weakness: in the exact moment you most want to undo them, undoing them takes seconds. A dedicated blocker is designed around that moment.

We make one, QUIT, so take this section with that in mind. Here’s what a good blocker should do, and what QUIT does:

  • Block in every browser and app, including private tabs, not just one search engine.
  • Lock SafeSearch on Google, Bing and YouTube so explicit results stay hidden.
  • Filter on your phone, so your browsing history isn’t sent to anyone.
  • Add a delay before it can be turned off. In QUIT, Strict Mode makes turning the shield off a request that unlocks in 24 hours, or sooner if a partner you trust approves. Urges pass long before that.
  • Notice when protection is weakened, and tell you (and a partner, if you choose).
  • Help in the moment, not just block: a panic button, breathing, and someone to talk to at 1am.

How to make any blocker harder to switch off

  • Set it up when you’re calm, not in the middle of an urge, and decide the rules then.
  • Lock VPN-based blockers in. If your blocker uses Android’s VPN feature (as QUIT does), open Settings → VPN, tap the gear next to the app and turn on Always-on VPN. Android then won’t let another VPN app quietly replace it.
  • Tell one person. Accountability works because a slip stops being a secret.
  • Give yourself a delay. “Not now. If I still want to in 24 hours, I’ll decide then.”

What blocking can’t do

A blocker removes the easy path. It doesn’t remove the urge. The urge still comes, usually at the same times and in the same moods. What you do in the next ten minutes is what changes things, and that’s a skill you can learn: how to ride out an urge.