Ironman273 Posted February 26, 2015 Share Posted February 26, 2015 I have a friend that has a small company with 6 users. He'd like to block certain sites (Facebook, Instagram) so they can't access them. My first though was the hosts file but I really don't want to have to go out and do it for him and he wouldn't know how. I found a free program called Web Blocker. Has anyone heard of or had experience with it? Any other possibilities? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted February 26, 2015 Veteran Share Posted February 26, 2015 Opendns https://www.opendns.com/ Many times the av software will have this built in. Trend does this in the worry free business security (antivirus, antimalware, antispam, web security per user, just under 40/yr for a 1 year sub per user, 32/yr for a 2 year sub per user, 13.81/yr for a 3 year sub per user. http://buyonline.trendmicro.com/store/trendsb/en_US/home?cm_sp=Lightbox-_-Where+To+Buy-_-Small+Business:Store when you get the price, total$/yr/user amount to find out where I found those numbers. You can do it with k9 It is 19.99 a year for all 6 users. http://www1.k9webprotection.com/get-k9-web-protection-for-organizations There are firewall distros you can do this with too, just need the hardware to put them on: pfsense smoothwall Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAZMINATOR Posted February 26, 2015 Share Posted February 26, 2015 ^ What he said. Alternatively, you can filter the websites in the router admin panel. Which is block the said contents on household/business network... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted February 26, 2015 Veteran Share Posted February 26, 2015 Also parental controls/web blocking is built into current versions of windows. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/set-parental-controls#1TC=windows-7 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-child-account Ian W 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironman273 Posted February 26, 2015 Author Share Posted February 26, 2015 OpenDNS isn't free and I have to check what AV he uses. Windows parental controls may work but he'd probably need to completely revamp his users. Wouldn't the web blocker program I linked to be something that could be installed, password protected and then "forgotten"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted February 26, 2015 Veteran Share Posted February 26, 2015 TBH, never used your linked software, or heard of it, or would consider using it based on how dated everything looks. Also it doesn't look to have a lot of standard definitions/options...which means it probably uses a custom database that may not be accurate or as full bodied as others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAZMINATOR Posted February 26, 2015 Share Posted February 26, 2015 Does anyone have access to the router? If only one person who has an access to it, then that person can filter the websites in the router panel... then once it's done, everyone else on the network, can not access the website due to blocked access based on your filters. If there is more than one person who have access to the router, you might want to consider to change the pass and filter it. So no one can not get in... It's up to you. If they must have to have an access to the router, then you will get an app to filter the domains/contents. But the app might be required to be installed on each system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+John Teacake MVC Posted February 26, 2015 MVC Share Posted February 26, 2015 http://dansguardian.org/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted February 26, 2015 Veteran Share Posted February 26, 2015 Take a look at the block list in the one you linked to listed compared to one of the ones I have listed: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironman273 Posted February 26, 2015 Author Share Posted February 26, 2015 TBH, never used your linked software, or heard of it, or would consider using it based on how dated everything looks. Also it doesn't look to have a lot of standard definitions/options...which means it probably uses a custom database that may not be accurate or as full bodied as others. Yeah, it looks straight out of the 90s... Does anyone have access to the router? If only one person who has an access to it, then that person can filter the websites in the router panel... then once it's done, everyone else on the network, can not access the website due to blocked access based on your filters. If there is more than one person who have access to the router, you might want to consider to change the pass and filter it. So no one can not get in... It's up to you. If they must have to have an access to the router, then you will get an app to filter the domains/contents. But the app might be required to be installed on each system. That's the thing, I don't want it to be up to me I just wanted to tell him "install this on the computers" and that's that. I guess I may have to get more involved than I wanted. I just hate the "I think something broke (that's completely unrelated) and you were the last one to do something on my network so now you have to fix it." http://dansguardian.org/ Not Windows... Take a look at the block list in the one you linked to listed compared to one of the ones I have listed: <snip> I had come across that on my search also but it's only free for personal use. Maybe I'll just download that web blocker on a vm or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted February 26, 2015 Veteran Share Posted February 26, 2015 I had come across that on my search also but it's only free for personal use. It is 19.99 a year for all 6 users. That equates to $.28 a user per month. He is wasting more time and money having you search for this. What I would do in your shoes: 1. find out if his av supports this 2. get an av that supports this and supports him if he has an issue 3. if that doesn't work, offer him up solutions that will give him support if something fails Even if you are calling, he is calling, or if he eventually gets someone else to support him, there will be an option to have support from the manufacturer to help remedy things quickly and get a resolution as fast as possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironman273 Posted February 26, 2015 Author Share Posted February 26, 2015 It is 19.99 a year for all 6 users. That equates to $.28 a user per month. He is wasting more time and money having you search for this. No, it's $20 per license. $120 a year. But yes, this is turning into more than a simple Google search. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted February 26, 2015 Veteran Share Posted February 26, 2015 Sorry, didn't see total price. Go with the antivirus/antimalware/desktop security solution...works out better and it will be easier to manage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironman273 Posted February 26, 2015 Author Share Posted February 26, 2015 Yeah... I'll have to see how involved I want to get. Thanks to everyone for the replies! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadrack Posted February 26, 2015 Share Posted February 26, 2015 I use OpenDNS and utilize features in my router (flashed with DD-WRT) to enforce usage of OpenDNS (by forcing the tcp port associated with DNS lookups to always redirect to OpenDNS). However, I've found that this doesn't work with the Facebook app on my iPhone. I think there are hard coded IP addresses or something that doesn't require DNS. Should be fine for desktop applications. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian W Posted February 26, 2015 Share Posted February 26, 2015 Also parental controls/web blocking is built into current versions of windows. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/set-parental-controls#1TC=windows-7 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-child-account It should be noted that only Windows Vista and Windows 8 / Windows 8.1 provide a web filtering feature. If the OP is using Windows 7 then the use of a third-party program is necessary. The web filtering features in those operating systems are quite extensive. Not only can websites be blocked based on predefined categories, but additional options to block specific websites and/or file downloads are also available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted February 26, 2015 Veteran Share Posted February 26, 2015 For windows 7: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/set-up-family-safety#set-up-family-safety=windows-7 It is not available for machines joined to a domain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gohpep Posted February 27, 2015 Share Posted February 27, 2015 This is kind of advanced, but it is very awesome. http://www.pps.univ-paris-diderot.fr/~jch/software/polipo/ Also, there is this. It looks nicer and is more user friendly, but it is more limited. It seems like blocking is not enforced, I am not sure if it can be set to be enforced. http://getcoldturkey.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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