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ipFireGuard+
uses DansGuardian*
as its web content filter and is an OpenSource package which
currently runs on a range of operating system platforms including
Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and Solaris and integrates with
ipFireGuard+
to provide a true highly configurable web content filter.
It is designed to be completely flexible
and allows you to tailor the filtering to your exact needs.
It can be as draconian or as unobstructive as you feel is
appropriate to your company's policies. The default settings
are geared towards what a primay school might want, to provide
complete secure browsing but you control what you want to
block.
What
is 'Content Filtering'?
Many web filters have very large
database lists of bad sites maintained by third parties.
If you try to go to these sites you will get blocked. ie your
web access is filtered by web address. In this scenario the
sites blocked are only as up-to-date as the database being
used.
The web
is a fast changing place and even large web search engines
such as Google or Altavista or Yahoo don't even know the half
of it.
This makes filtering by web address
(URL) alone difficult as sites change and new ones come up
all the time. It is impossible to have comprehensive filtering
using just URLs.
What is needed is something to check
every page you (or your staff) ever access for 'bad' subjects
such as drugs, profanities, hate, pornography, etc, and disallow
it if it's not deemed suitable or in contravention of company
policy. This is called 'Content Filtering'.
What
it does!
It filters the actual content of pages based on many methods
including phrase matching, PICS filtering and URL filtering.
It does not purely filter based on a banned list of sites
like other filters.
It filters using multiple methods.
These methods include:-
- URL
and domain filtering
- content
phrase filtering
- PICS
filtering
- MIME
filtering
- file
extension filtering
- POST
limiting
The content phrase filtering will check
for pages that contain profanities and phrases often associated
with pornography and other undesirable content. The POST filtering
allows you to block or limit web upload. The URL and domain
filtering is able to handle huge lists and is significantly
faster than other commercially available products.
The filtering has configurable domain, user and source ip
exception lists. SSL Tunneling is supported.
ipFireGuard+
puts you in control of the web content coming in to your company.
The configurable logging produces a
log in an easy to read format which has the option to only
log the text-based pages, thus significantly reducing redundant
information such as every image on a page.
Pretty much all parts of ipFireGuard+
are configurable thus giving the end administrator user total
control over what is filtered and not some third-party company.
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