Free Filtering Software

[Zoom7000]

Bloxx, School Guardian, Websweeper and the likes are great when at school. Unfortunately, personal finances for the home never seem to reach so far!

 

Are there any good free web filtering solutions for the home? Before anyone suggests, I have tried the hosts file with no luck since upgrading to IE7 and also couldn't get Firefox to read the loopbacks either. So, something commercial like, but free would be very nice.

 

Any suggestions?

[generalen]

I guess you could use Privoxy for this. It's a proxy you install on your local machine. The main feature is to block ads based on filenames, paths and words, but you can easily edit the config-file so it fits your needs.

Privoxy - Home Page.

[actech]

I recommend K9 Web Protection to parents that ask. Fairly basic to use and does a reasonably good job.

[OutToLunch]

Naomi isn't bad either, but most of the free home solutions are very, very basic...

 

 Naomi - freeware internet filter 

[JJonas]

K9 works but parents need to make sure they dont link it to an email address the kids have access to. Otherwise the kids can make a forgotten password request, check their parents email and turn off the filter!

 

We have Securus onsite so that gives parents access to Securus home.

[Edu-IT]

K9 works but parents need to make sure they dont link it to an email address the kids have access to. Otherwise the kids can make a forgotten password request, check their parents email and turn off the filter!

 

We have Securus onsite so that gives parents access to Securus home.

Securus as in the screen capturing software? If so what is Securus home?

[IA76]

untangle is open source Home

[Ric_]

Also look at IPCop with Copguardian (I think that is the name of it... it is an addon containing Dansguardian, AlamAV, Privoxy and Squidguard).

 

Smoothwall Express with some addons is another option.

[dhicks]

Are there any good free web filtering solutions for the home?

 

I've wondered a couple of times how practical it would be for parents to simply point their children's computers at our web proxy. I pretty much all traffic would be out of school hours, so it might just be feasible.

 

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David Hicks

[Edu-IT]

I've wondered a couple of times how practical it would be for parents to simply point their children's computers at our web proxy. I pretty much all traffic would be out of school hours, so it might just be feasible.

 

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David Hicks

What about if your proxy server goes down?

[RabbieBurns]

Would squid do it?

[dhicks]

What about if your proxy server goes down?

 

That'd be a problem, obviously - we'd need to be running a system similar to an ISPs, with redundant power supplies, battery/generator backed power, etc... Hmm, I wonder if an online service would be more practical? Something like Amazon's computing cloud, running a proxy server? They charge for bandwidth and processor time - this is something that would be low on processor time but high on bandwidth. We could charge parents to cover our costs. Hmm...

 

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David Hicks

[FragglePete]

I've been playing around with Microsoft's Family Safety system and it seems quite good.

 

I've got an eight year at home who is starting to use the web more and more, and it keeps a good check on what she's doing along with keeping a log of all the websites she visits. I can view the log via my Live account anywhere.

 

Pete