Does anyone know how to block pages through firefox (portable?) or any other browser?
I convinced my (co-volunteer?) to get internet for our (church) school because he had previously taken it out because others were going to bad websites, yada, yada, yada.
I know how to block websites with safari on a mac but I have no clue what web browsers can do so on a PC.
Any ideas?
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I can't find such a thing on firefox, but IE8 (not sure if it is Vista only - more of a control panel option) has a parental control feature in the internet options, content.
You could also use a webfilter, like OpenDNS, or K9 Web protection (Both free)
Another thing to do would be a custom HOSTS file (such as MVPs or HpHosts) and use Hostsman to keep it updated - although this option is more for adware/spyware etc...
-Scott-
“There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!”Richard Feynman
Here is one response from searching (I used Google) "block website firefox".
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080120053857AAqCQgE
No good ideas there, sorry.
The most promising thing there was an extension which has been abandoned for a year and a half. The extension search revealed nothing useful, and HOSTS doesn't work (I was still able to access MySpace, having blocked both myspace.com and www.myspace.com in HOSTS.
My needs are a little different, though. The work computers have site blocking at the server level, but I want it at the client level so the guys at IT don't see repeated requests to the same blocked sites and get the wrong idea. Rather, once blocked the first time, I'd like to add the site to the local blacklist, and this way, the request for the blocked site wouldn't even show up. We're not even talking about X-rated sites or social networking sites (the latter of which, e.g. MySpace, are not even blocked), we're just talking about news sites (mostly gaming news).
Use OpenDNS to take care of securing it.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
He has Cricket Wireless. I'm not sure if that will make cricket mad?
doubt it, but I'm not sure. All DNS is domain name service, i.e. translating text addresses (yahoo.com) to ip addresses (209.191.93.53)
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
I use this extension with Firefox to blacklist annoying sites...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3145
That's the one that's been abandoned for a year and a half and isn't compatible with Firefox 3.5. At least not without modifying it, that is.
this http://procon.mozdev.org/ IDK if it's what your looking for. There seems to be another thread discussing this in OT, IIRC.
Nice. I think that will work for me. I don't think I need a profanity filter as well, but it's a nice touch. I don't mind the profanity, normally, but I only use the Firefox Portable on my flash drive at work, so I don't mind leaving it up there. I don't see where to add specific URLs, though. Might work for the TC however.
Got Mr. Tech Toolkit to allow incompatible extensions to be installed. Removed that ProCon extension and added BlockSite. Blocked kotaku.com (gaming site I know is blocked) and it still triggered the warning from the work firewall/net nanny thing, so
BlockSite doesn't work very well. It may have blocked Yahoo OK (a test) but that's a site I can access anyway. Still, BlockSite says it can disable links to blocked sites, so at least I can't access sites by accidentally clicking links (e.g. on Google News).OK, I got it working. Wildcards are the key. I had "kotaku.com" blocked but "www.kotaku.com" went through. (Not spamming the link/name, just testing my link blocker, a mod can remove the link if they like.)
This is awesome, thanks all for the tips. That "content blocked" is always like a slap in the face, it'll be nice to never see it again (and it makes me/the dept. look better to IT, if they look at the logs).
You can make your own "update" with a quick edit...
https://portableapps.com/node/19858#comment-122320
Been doing it that way for a long long time.
but I crashed FFP like 5 times doing that. I think you have to be absolutely sure that it will work before using that.
No problems here with the 20-some extensions I use. Issues are normally relayed pretty quickly in the comments section. I doubt the process of recognizing and blocking a site changes much between FF versions. So suit youself, but FWIW Blocksite continues to work just fine here.
AdBlockPlus is my preferred way of doing this. can be used to blat away individual pages, parts of pages, adverts and dubious content. There are ready-made filter lists that squash the most blatant ads and suppress leaky pages to protect your privacy. Easy to add your own rules too and, if you wish, to override rules from the public filter lists. There are country specific lists too (Russian, German, Swedish, UK).
Also useful to have their Element Hiding Helper add-on so you can exercise fine control over what parts of pages get expunged or hidden.
Check out here for more details and a link to adds-on.mozilla.com.
As it's 100% JavaScript it should work on Linux as well as it does on Windows or Mac OS X. Also works nicely with both Firefox and Firefox Portable; including an easy, though not automatic, way to share rules sets between the two. I'm told but haven't verified it for myself that it also works in Thunderbird.
I have adblock plus, but like the other addons, you can disable/uninstall the addons. I was looking for a way thats more difficult for the average person to hack (average being somebody that can't do more than surf the web and type up word documents).
There is no way for a web site to disable AdBlockPlus; it runs at the chrome: level. Typically web site owners who think that ads give them revenue try to get around ABP by setting some JavaScript variable in a script that would be blocked; so one simply whitelists the script. Others think that by messing with a page's CSS they can force you to see the ads; b*******s you simply use the element hider to hide their idiotic pleading element.
Some other add-on developers have tried to f*** with AdBlockPlus filter lists during the installation of their "product" but these alterations are easily emoved. Plus they upset the greater number of ABP users that they have to capitulate and stop being so stupid.
Check out the AdBlockPlus forum. The compilers of the various filter lists are active there and can usually provide a work-around to these supposed "disable" ABP schemes.
I meant that the user themself could disable/remove the addons simply by going to tools, addons, disable, then restarting firefox and presto, the filter is removed.
As your setting this up in a cgurch perhaps you need to exercise some trust in the people using system. Or, as my own church does for its staff, have someone to whom users are accountable.
It is however possible to set AdBlockPlus up so that only a Windows administrator can disable filters or turn off the add-on. I still think it is the easiest solution.
I was also wondering if you (or someone else) knew how to make an addon permanent (like microsoft .NET Framework assistence, whatever that is) to any addon including this one.
As PortableApps so aptly demonstrates, it is too easy to run a different browser from a portable drive. OpenDNS is easy to bypass. HOSTS files slow down the system when they grow large.
I would install an intercepting proxy server http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server#Content-filtering_web_proxy like Privoxy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privoxy , installed locally on each PC.
This would force all web-traffic through a content-blocking filter, no matter which browser was used. Ordinary users should not have administration privileges so that they could mess up the proxy server program, of course.
This can be bypassed (duh, of course) by rebooting the computer and running the OS from a Live CD, so you would have to change the boot options in the BIOS to disable boot from CD. In addition, you would need to set a BIOS password to prevent anyone from enabling the CD boot option. A BIOS password can only be bypassed (reset) by opening the PC case.
A slightly more expensive option would be to have a dedicated PC as a proxy server, which would intercept all web-traffic from any and all PC's on the local network. It can be a (relatively) inexpensive PC, but would need to be placed in an inaccessible location.
WAIT A MINUTE!
All this talk of blocking software... Which firewall do you use?
Add them to the list of blocked IP addresses your firewall uses! Voila! Even if booting from a boot-CD, you can't get around that one because your router/firewall will still prevent it!
No more satanist WWW sites - which should make your church elders happy!
To do this, you'll need the IP addresses of the WWW site you want to block.
To get this you can use "nslookup" with the domain name of the WWW site, and it'll tell you the IP address to block.
For example:
http://www.churchofsatan.com/ - 72.51.34.203
http://www.satanscheerleaders.com/ - 69.64.156.48
http://www.satanicchurch.com/ - 209.163.169.35
http://www.theisticsatanism.com/ - 208.113.226.113
If you're not using a firewall - you'll probably want to delete everything from your computer and reinstall windows by the time you read this post, as it'll probably have loads of viruses on it by now.
Install AdBlock Plus - then add filters for all the satanist WWW sites you don't want anyone to go to.
AdBlock Plus is intended for use with adverts, but there's no reason it can't be used in this way.
I use PublicFox. You can even use a password, block the add-ons page, and various other things. And it's still in active development.
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