IE add-on

Polonious

Anybody know of an add-on for IE or a seperate program that allows you to specify what websites are allowed to be accessed. I know there are ones that you can block certain sites, but i want to be able to allow certain sites.... ?

seamus

Hmmm......what are you trying to do?

Add-ons for IE would be a basic type of filtering, and I'm sure they'd work, sort of, but if it's protecting your kids that you're worried about, don't bother. Most solutions are quite easily circumvented, if you're only going to install them on the local machine. Your kids are more intelligent and persistent than you think. They will find ways around it.

What OS are you using, and what type of internet connection? We may be able to give you more customised advice.

Polonious

Not kids, employees! Windows XP is the OS. There are only about 5 sites they should ever need to be on, so i want to allow those and nothing else. Most won't bother trying to get around it if they see that it's blocked. There are one or two that will give it a try though!

seamus

Originally posted by Polonious
Not kids, employees! Windows XP is the OS. There are only about 5 sites they should ever need to be on, so i want to allow those and nothing else. Most won't bother trying to get around it if they see that it's blocked. There are one or two that will give it a try though!

Oh......
OK, well saving you my own opinion on restricting employee's web rights, how do they access the web? Does each machine connect to a hub that's connected to a line (DSL or whatever) or does each machine have its own connection, or do you have a proxy machine that's connected to the web, and each machine connects to that?

It would be possible to create unchangeable settings in IE, but they can just install another browser to get around it.

Polonious

They access through one machine, connected to isdn. SO i'd only have to do it on one pc. It's in a store, so they shouldn't even be on the internet, but the connection is there for email access which they do need and a handful of websites that are useful to the business. Problem is, i've been finding a lot of entries in the history that shouldn't be there, so i want to try prevent that. The oul isdn bill is getting too high!! They won't install anything else because i've the pc pretty well locked down using group policy, and the user they log on as is just a normal user with very little rights...

Capt'n Midnight

Turn off DNS in their network settings
and add the allowed domains and thier IP addresses to the hosts file.

or remove the gateway from thier nic cfg and instead use static routes to point at the router. (unfortunatly windows has this nasty habbit of setting up a modem with lower metric than a 1GB network card - pain in the proverbials ) - also set IE to NEVER dial a connection - so they have to do it manually - if it is only email check that programs settings for dial up and times.

NB:
adobe acrobat is one of many programs that tries to phone home on evevy occasion to check for upgrades. so it might not be the employees !

spend a little money on an ISDN router that has a built in firewall (you should really have one already to stop the nasties comming back in) - you can use this to block calls by time too ..


* almost forgot - FASTNET99 can do a lot of the hosts stuff for you - use it INSTEAD of DNS http://www.freedownloads.be/downloaddetail/335

Polonious

I'll check it out thanks!