Web Filtering Software

[Ironman273]

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.

[sc302 Veteran]

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

[TAZMINATOR]

^ What he said.

 

Alternatively, you can filter the websites in the  router admin panel. Which is block the said contents on household/business network...

[sc302 Veteran]

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

[Ironman273]

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"?

[sc302 Veteran]

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.

[TAZMINATOR]

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.

[+John Teacake MVC]

http://dansguardian.org/

[sc302 Veteran]

Take a look at the block list in the one you linked to listed compared to one of the ones I have listed:

 

[Ironman273]

  On 26/02/2015 at 20:17, sc302 said:

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...

 

  On 26/02/2015 at 20:17, shozilla said:

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."

 

  On 26/02/2015 at 20:19, RedReddington said:

http://dansguardian.org/

Not Windows...

  On 26/02/2015 at 20:24, sc302 said:

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.

[sc302 Veteran]

  On 26/02/2015 at 20:26, Ironman273 said:

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.

[Ironman273]

  On 26/02/2015 at 20:27, sc302 said:

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.

[sc302 Veteran]

Sorry,  didn't see total price.  Go with the antivirus/antimalware/desktop security solution...works out better and it will be easier to manage.

[Ironman273]

Yeah... I'll have to see how involved I want to get.

 

Thanks to everyone for the replies!

[Shadrack]

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.

[Ian W]

  On 26/02/2015 at 20:06, sc302 said:

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.

[sc302 Veteran]

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.

[gohpep]

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/