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Show HN: Sinkzone DNS – Forwarder that blocks everything except your allowlist

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Show HN: Sinkzone DNS – Forwarder that blocks everything except your allowlist

#1

Post by dominis »

Most site blockers work by blacklisting distractions. That never worked for me, the internet is too big, and there’s always something new to waste time on.

I wanted the opposite: allowlist‑only browsing. Block everything by default, and explicitly allow only what I need.

So I built Sinkzone: a local DNS forwarder with two modes:

Monitor mode: lets all traffic through, but logs every domain so you can decide what to allow.

Focus mode: only allowlisted domains resolve; everything else is blocked (NXDOMAIN).

It’s open source, written in Go, and runs locally on macOS, Linux, and Windows. Works a bit like Pi‑hole, but instead of blocking ads, it blocks everything unless you say otherwise.

I’m curious if this would be useful in your workflow. If you try it, please let me know what breaks, what works well, and what you’d improve.

Show HN: Sinkzone DNS – Forwarder that blocks everything except your allowlist
github.com

Re: Show HN: Sinkzone DNS – Forwarder that blocks everything except your allowlist

#3

Post by eszpee »

Sounds interesting! The Pomodoro app I'm using for focus times has this feature built in (I wrote about it here: https://peterszasz.com/finding-focus-through-intention-and-a... ), but before finding that, I would've definitely tried this.

Improvement idea: Integrate with Apple Shortcuts, so the user could automate switching focus mode on and off, tied to changing Apple Focus mode.

Re: Show HN: Sinkzone DNS – Forwarder that blocks everything except your allowlist

#4

Post by daft_pink »

artooro wrote: post #2

How is this better than using Pi-hole to do the same? It can also run in an allow only mode as I understand.

I think the idea is that it blocks everything on your machine instead of causing the whole network to go offline as piholes are generally applied to the entire home network.

Your mileage might vary, but in my home, causing my smarthome plus my wife and children’s internet to go offline might cause a bigger distraction to my focus. Also you couldn’t use a pi-hole at work for instance.

Re: Show HN: Sinkzone DNS – Forwarder that blocks everything except your allowlist

#5

Post by dominis »

artooro wrote: post #2

How is this better than using Pi-hole to do the same? It can also run in an allow only mode as I understand.

I wanted to build my tool because eventually I want to support multi-tenancy. Custom allowlists and schedules for all family members.

Re: Show HN: Sinkzone DNS – Forwarder that blocks everything except your allowlist

#6

Post by dominis »

eszpee wrote: post #3

Sounds interesting! The Pomodoro app I'm using for focus times has this feature built in (I wrote about it here: https://peterszasz.com/finding-focus-through-intention-and-a... ), but before finding that, I would've definitely tried this. Improvement idea: Integrate with Apple Shortcuts, so the user could automate switching focus mode on and off, tied to changing Apple Focus mode.

Hey Eszpee, Thanks for checking Sinkzone out. I'm thinking about building custom schedules in the next iteration, that would support some basic pomodoro style scheduling for sure.
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