Need a good, invisible, adult site blocker.

A family friend of ours has a son that has been visiting adult sites and the mother has asked me to install an adult site blocker that would run in the background undetected. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what software I should install? I've never even looked into these types of blockers before so i have no idea what the quality programs are.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Their computer is:

Win 2000
XP 2000+
512 MB PC3200
80GB HDD
Integrated Audio/Video



Cooked

 

I don't use this but it is free for home use:

SurfPass Home Edition

 

If they are on highspeed - some routers have a filter that uses keywords, just block the usual words and that will fix him. (Had to do that for a friend that had a netgear router) LOL.

 

Mother may as well tell son that they are going to block "pron" sites.
Son will soon find out when he can't access sites he wants to.
Son will have more respect for parents telling him beforehand, than telling him afterwards, as they will have to tell him, anyhow. My $0.02 Bazza
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Thanks Shadow_Puter_Dude - I was looking for a free program and this looks promising. I'll have to try it out when they drop the tower off this week.

foogoo - Thanks for the suggestion. They do have high speed but not a router. I was hoping their ISP had some type of filter but that came up as a dead end.

bigbazza - Thanks for your input. The son has received many warnings before and nothing has stopped him. The parents are not always home to reinforce punishments so they want me to install a program that the son could not find - so he doesn't change any settings etc.

I'm still open for suggestions. I have a few days until the tower gets dropped off and I just wanted to see if anyone has used any program and liked it.



cooked

 

I had a guy at work ask me the same question so I sent him the link.

I love the info you can get from this site.

 

"Net nanny" search on google

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=netnanny&num=20&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=lang_en&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=images

"site blocker" search on google

http://www.google.com/search?num=20&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=ISO-8859-1&as_qdr=all&q=+%22site+blocker%22&btnG=Search&lr=lang_en

These may provide another starting point. Bazza

 

Thanks bigbazza.

The first thing I had done was a google search and I had come up with many deferent programs including "Net nanny." I was hoping someone here had experience in using a program so i wouldn't go out on a limb trying various programs.

Thanks for the help.



cooked

 

You're welcome.
C'mon Mg 'ers. There must be someone using a "net Nanny" type program, to help OverCooked. Bazza
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This may work for you.

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/resource.htm

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/res/ie-spyad.txt

 

If they are using a later version of Windows, e.g. Windows XP, then surely it doesn't matter too much what they use if they set it as a service running under Administrator privileges and restrict his access rights.
THe standard security rules then apply - a password he isn't going to be able to crack (this side of a very long time) and then if the process blocking him doesn't advertise what it is then he isn't going to be able to search for cracks to bypass it on the net...

I personally don't have any experience with any of these products.

 

I have Net Nanny and installed it today. I wasn't particularly impressed and uninstalled it. The main disadvantages are:

It slows down the net considerably on a 2Mbit connection, possibly because it has to filter content and/or it goes via a proxy.
It requires accounts to be set-up (fiddly set-up) but these are not tied into the windows accounts. Also each "account" has to log in again after you have logged into windows.
It interferes with other programs, most notably anti-virus software.
It interferes with some on-line games despite allowing the game full access.
However, it does block particular web sites.

In the past I used Norton Internet Security which has parental controls. This was very good and it ties in with the windows accounts. Its disadvantage is that it takes time to load up first but once loaded it goes very well. This also blocks pop-ups and adverts and does slow the connection a little but not as much as NN. I'm hoping I can just install that component of NIS since the network router acts as a hardware firewall. Before I do, I'm researching and would be interested in what you find.

 

Check out threads,

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=67136 and
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=67122

for a program that I suggest you consider. Bazza

 

Thanks everyone!

We went with the content blocker built in IE. It blocked out most of the sites, and we didn't have to worry about any program slowing down the connection, or other hassles.

Thanks!



cooked

 

Overcooked, I looked at that and I was under the impression that only those web sites that bothered to register or declare there content type or rating, were subject to the rating rules of the content advisor. OK, you can block those sites that do not register a rating but I think most sites do not and this includes many safe sites.

Also, the content advisor seems to apply to all accounts on the PC there is no way to customise this for different types of user, e.g., older children (teenagers) should be allowed to see some content that not necessarily is appropriate for younger children.

Finally, the content advisor settings can simply be overridden by changing the appropriate registry settings and be reset back again. There are a number of web sites that show how to do this but are not necessrily blocked by the content advisor.

 

Thanks Maxwell,

I was aware how the blocker worked and although its not as efficient as we had hoped it should do for now. I had to return the computer to the family but I'm still looking around for a solid alternative.

The persons using the computer aren't very computer illiterate - especially the one we were having problems with. He was saving Adult web pages to the desktop! So I don't think we have to worry about him making any registry changes.

Thanks for the help



cooked

 

Overcooked, did you get a chance to try out the program I mentioned earlier (in reply #13)? I've never tried it but read a pretty positive review of it in PCUtilities #56, p86. Like to know if anyone has actually used it. Bazza

 

I ran Cyber Patrol on my sons 'puter for awhile, but he would reinstall his software for various problems related to gaming, or so he said and it would get deleted.

 

try bsafe - been using if for about 10 months now. Works great! It is actually a service that is installed and not a program. 'Claims' to be tamper proof. Well there are a few workarounds but that would require some effort and above average knowledge of computer use. If one even tries to tamper with it without knowing exactly what they are doing you would have to reboot/repair the service to get your internet back.

 

Are they even using the basic tools included with Win2k or XP. That is, set up an administrators account with a Password the "problem child" doesn't know and can't easily hack. And then set up a User account for said child. That will prevent him from editing the Registry, installing programs, etc. After doing those basic things is the time to think about a content filter. But using the tools built into Windwoes almost guarantees that even a moron can break them in short order - not designed for security from the ground up. If he can't figure it out himself, one of his friends will supply the directions/tools...

.bh.