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Jan 1999
Soft Serve Direct
Box 389, Magrath,
Alberta, Canada T0K 1JO |
Phone (403) 388-4332
Fax (403) 758-3505
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aking the internet safe - Log / Filter / Block .
It's 1999, do you know where your kid's are? (or have been
.. on the net, that is). It is a sad fact that there do exist many inappropriate sites
that children (or most sane adults) have no need of viewing.
Upon request from many of my customers, I have been researching solutions to this
problem. The results of my search is summarized in our new Safe Surfing Tips (ssdirect.com/ca/faq/surfsafe.htm) page. Bottom line, of
all the programs tested, we liked newcomer WizGuard
(www.wizguard.com) program for best value, ease of
use/setup and overall effectiveness and trim download size (<800K). Many older filter
programs required the 'responsible adult' to key in good sites permitted and bad sites to
be excluded - not good .. the net is too big and changable to make this a fun task.
WizGuard automatically scans for words and phrases on the requested pages and blocks pages
with inappropriate content. IMHO, search engine result pages should remain accessible
since they are just links to other pages - only the actual offensive pages should be
blocked. WizGuard works this way .. except for searches with keyword = 'xxx' (for some
reason). FYI: Some sites can still trick the automatic blocking by putting content in
picture form and through careful selection/spelling of keywords. For some reason, the
software can't look at the picture and decide, 'Hey, that's no good'! On the other hand,
you can monitor where the browser has been via the access logs and add blocking to
specific problem sites manually.You can download a demo of the program with a 14 day trial
period, try it - you may like it.
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