Cold Turkey Supported Browsers: The Full List

Someone searching “Cold Turkey supported browsers” is usually in one of two situations: they’re about to install it and want to know if it’ll actually cover the browser they use every day, or they’ve already set up a block and it didn’t stop a site the way they expected. Both questions have the same answer, and it’s not a checklist of browser names.

Most website blockers people have tried before are browser extensions — they live inside Chrome or Firefox, and they stop working the moment you open a different browser or disable the extension. Cold Turkey doesn’t work that way, which is exactly why the “which browsers does it support” question is more interesting than it first looks. Understanding how it blocks tells you more than any compatibility list could.

This article covers what Cold Turkey actually blocks on Windows and Mac, where the real gaps are (including the ones people are searching for under “browsers that bypass Cold Turkey”), and where a different approach — like doing the work inside one browser that can’t be switched away from — fits better than a system-wide blocker.

In short — Cold Turkey Blocker isn’t tied to a specific browser: because it filters traffic at the operating system level rather than through a browser extension, it blocks the same sites in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, and Safari without any per-browser setup.

• Windows — every browser installed on the machine is covered automatically, including ones installed after you already set up a block.
• Mac — Safari and any Chromium-based browser are blocked the same way; no plugin required.
• Installing a new browser to get around a block — doesn’t work by design, since the filter isn’t attached to any single browser’s process.
• One specific page, not a whole site (a single Reddit thread, one YouTube video) — domain-level blocking can’t see the exact URL under HTTPS; Cold Turkey’s optional browser extension exists to close that gap.
• Mobile browsers on iPhone or Android — outside Cold Turkey’s reach entirely; it’s a desktop app only.

Browser	Windows	Mac	Notes
Chrome	Covered	Covered	Blocked at the system level, no extension needed
Firefox	Covered	Covered	Same mechanism as Chrome
Edge	Covered	—	Default Windows browser, fully covered
Safari	—	Covered	Covered on Mac despite not being Chromium-based
Brave	Covered	Covered	Same coverage as Chrome, since the block isn’t extension-based
Opera / Vivaldi	Covered	Covered	Chromium-based, no separate setup
Arc	Covered	Covered	Chromium-based, no separate setup
Tor Browser	Partial	Partial	Onion routing can route around local network filtering
Mobile Safari / Chrome (iOS, Android)	Not supported	Not supported	Cold Turkey has no mobile app

How Cold Turkey Actually Blocks a Website

The reason Cold Turkey’s browser support question resolves so cleanly is that it doesn’t operate inside a browser at all. Extension-based blockers like LeechBlock run as add-ons — they see requests made from that specific browser, and they can be turned off or removed from that browser’s settings in a couple of clicks. Cold Turkey instead intercepts network traffic at the operating system level, before it’s clear which application even sent the request.

That distinction is what makes it browser-agnostic. It doesn’t need to know that Brave exists, or that you switched from Firefox to Vivaldi last week — it’s watching the destination of the traffic, not the application generating it. Practically, that means setup happens once, at the Cold Turkey level, and every browser on the machine inherits the same block automatically.

It also means the usual extension bypass — right-click, disable, reload the page — simply isn’t available, because there’s no extension to find in any browser’s toolbar.

Browser Coverage, Windows vs Mac

Windows: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi

On Windows, Cold Turkey’s system-level filter covers every mainstream browser without configuration: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi are all blocked identically once a site is added to a block list. If you’re comparing Windows-specific options more broadly, Best Website Blockers for Windows covers how Cold Turkey stacks up against alternatives like FocusMe or browser extensions.

Mac: Safari and Chromium Browsers

On Mac, the same logic applies to Safari, which is notable because Safari isn’t Chromium-based and doesn’t support most cross-browser extensions the way Chrome, Brave, and Edge do. Since Cold Turkey never touches the browser layer, that difference doesn’t matter — Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and any Chromium-based browser on the same Mac are all blocked the same way. For a broader look at Mac-specific options, see How to Block Websites on Mac.

Where the Real Gaps Are

System-level blocking solves the “which browser” problem, but it isn’t bulletproof. The searches around “browsers that bypass Cold Turkey” usually point at a handful of specific situations — none of which are actually about the browser itself.

New Browser Installs

Installing a browser you’ve never used before does not create a gap. Because the block operates below the browser layer, a fresh install is covered the moment it makes its first network request — there’s no manual step where you have to “add” a new browser to an existing block.

VPNs, Proxies, and DNS-over-HTTPS

The more realistic gap is anything that reroutes traffic outside the normal local path Cold Turkey watches. A VPN that tunnels traffic to a different network, a proxy, or a browser configured to use its own DNS-over-HTTPS resolver instead of the system’s DNS can all create situations where the local filter never sees the request clearly enough to block it. This isn’t unique to Cold Turkey — any tool that blocks locally, including hosts-file edits or router-level filtering, has the same blind spot when traffic is deliberately routed around it.

Tor Browser

Tor Browser is the extreme version of the same problem: it routes traffic through the Tor network by design, which can bypass local network filtering entirely regardless of which blocker is installed. If distraction sites are reachable through Tor on a machine that’s supposed to be locked down, that’s a configuration and self-discipline issue more than a Cold Turkey one.

What Cold Turkey Doesn’t Cover

Mobile Browsers

Cold Turkey is a Windows and Mac desktop application. There’s no iOS or Android version, so mobile Safari, Chrome for iOS, or Chrome for Android aren’t covered by anything you configure on your computer. If the goal is blocking the same sites on a phone, that needs a separate, mobile-capable tool — see How to Block Websites on iPhone and iPad for that side of the problem.

One Page, Not the Whole Domain

Because Cold Turkey’s core mechanism blocks by domain rather than by inspecting page content, blocking “reddit.com” is straightforward, but blocking one specific thread on Reddit or one specific YouTube video is not something a domain-level filter can see under HTTPS. Cold Turkey addresses this with an optional companion browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that adds page-level precision on top of the system-wide block. If that kind of granular, in-browser control is the main thing you need, it’s worth comparing against extension-first tools like how to blacklist a website on Chrome, which operate at that same page level natively.

When a System-Wide Blocker Isn’t the Right Shape

Cold Turkey’s whole design is built around covering every browser on a shared machine — which is exactly right when the problem is “I have three browsers installed and I get around blocks by switching between them.” For a full head-to-head, see Browwwser vs Cold Turkey.

But that same design has a tradeoff: because the block lives at the system level, disabling it usually means going into Cold Turkey itself, which on Windows requires administrator rights and can be paused given enough persistence or a machine you fully control. FocusMe takes a similar system-level approach on Windows and Mac, with the same basic tradeoffs.

Browwwser takes a different angle on the same underlying problem. It’s a Chromium-based browser for Mac, and its blocking runs inside the browser’s own engine rather than as an extension or a separate system process. There’s no toolbar add-on to disable and no second browser to fall back on for the sites you’re trying to avoid — if Browwwser is the browser you actually use for work, the block is simply part of how it renders pages. The tradeoff runs the other way from Cold Turkey’s: it doesn’t cover every browser on your Mac, only itself, so it fits people who are willing to do their focused work inside one browser rather than people who need every existing browser locked down at once.

Tool	Platforms	How blocking works	Free trial
Cold Turkey	Windows, Mac	System-level network filter, covers every browser	Yes, free tier
Browwwser	Mac	Built into the browser engine itself	Yes (7 days)
LeechBlock	Chrome, Firefox	Browser extension, per-browser	Yes, free
SelfControl	Mac	System-level, blocklist locked for a set duration	Yes, free

Which One Actually Fits

If the real problem is a household or work computer with several browsers installed, and different people or different moods reaching for whichever one isn’t currently blocked, a system-level tool that covers everything by default — Cold Turkey or FocusMe — is doing the right job for that situation.

If the problem is narrower — one person, one Mac, and a pattern of disabling an extension or just switching to whatever browser doesn’t have the block installed yet — the fix isn’t a bigger blocker, it’s removing the second browser from the equation. That’s the case for doing the actual work inside a browser where blocking isn’t a feature you can turn off, which is the approach Best Website Blockers in 2026 walks through across the full category, Browwwser included.

Either way, the “which browsers does it support” question turns out to be less about a compatibility list and more about where the block actually lives — in a browser you can close, or in the system underneath all of them.

FAQ

Does Cold Turkey Blocker work with Safari on Mac?

Yes. Cold Turkey filters traffic at the system level rather than through a browser extension, so Safari is blocked the same way as Chrome or Firefox on the same Mac. You don’t need to install anything inside Safari itself — once a block is set up in Cold Turkey, it applies to every browser on the machine, including ones you install later.

Does Cold Turkey block websites in Brave, Opera, or Vivaldi?

Yes. Because Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi are all Chromium-based and Cold Turkey doesn’t rely on browser extensions, its blocks apply to them automatically, the same way they apply to Chrome. There’s no per-browser setup step — the moment you add a site to a block, it’s blocked everywhere on that computer, current and future browsers alike.

Can you bypass Cold Turkey by installing a new browser?

No, not by design. Cold Turkey’s block sits below the browser layer, so a freshly installed browser is covered automatically rather than needing to be added manually. What can create real gaps is traffic that never passes through the normal local network path — a VPN, a proxy, or a DNS-over-HTTPS resolver pointed elsewhere, regardless of which browser sends the request.

Does Cold Turkey need a browser extension to block a site?

No, not for basic blocking — domain-level blocks work without installing anything in the browser. Cold Turkey does offer an optional Chrome and Firefox extension for finer control, like blocking one specific YouTube video or Reddit thread instead of the whole domain, since HTTPS hides that level of detail from a system-level filter.

Does Cold Turkey Blocker work on iPhone or Android?

No. Cold Turkey is a desktop application built for Windows and Mac, with no official iOS or Android app. If you rely on it at your computer, you’ll still need a separate tool for phone-level blocking, such as built-in screen time controls or a mobile-capable blocker. Cold Turkey’s coverage stops at the desktop entirely.

Is Cold Turkey Blocker available on Linux?

No. Cold Turkey only ships official builds for Windows and Mac; there’s no native Linux version. Linux users looking for a similar system-level approach typically turn to router-level blocking, DNS filtering tools, or editing the hosts file directly, since most desktop blockers in this category focus on Windows and Mac first.