block websites on rooted Android Nexus 6

I have been trying to block websites on my Nexus 6 Motorola phone. I made what I think should be a properly constructed "hosts" file and placed it in etc/ but it is not blocking the websites. I have the latest version of Android's OS installed. After struggling a lot to get the permissions to put the file in etc (someone else did it not me, I think using mounting), we were able to get the file into etc but it is not blocking the sites. Can you block the sites starting from scratch since I cannot say how to get the file into etc myself.