[TriLUG] content manager for desktop PC

[Aaron S. Joyner]

Doh, just noticed you said "desktop PC".  Generally I'm of the opinion 
that doing it at the server is more likely to keep your kids from 
dinking with it.  But if you'd prefer to do it at the client side, we 
recently researched this idea.  I will assume for the moment that you 
intend to use a windows box for the kids.  If the kids are using Linux 
on the desktop, squidguard and some iptables rules to block outbound 
port 80 will do the trick nicely.  The things we looked at were 
Cybersitter and NetNanny.  Cybersitter was found to be generally 
unsatisfactory, in that it had quite a lot of problems under XP, as it 
was never designed for a multi-user OS.  The same was true for NetNanny, 
although NN coped much better.

Cybersitter also has gotten lots of bad reviews for generally bad 
installation and uninstallation in older OSes, often taking down the 
entire system to the point of requiring a reinstall.  Granted, that's 
public opinion on the net, I haven't experienced those problems 
personally, but we weren't comfortable reselling a product that might 
result in that level of support nightmares.

[shameless plug] And if all of this is too daunting, you can signup for 
Intrex Internet, and we'll filter all of your traffic and enforce it at 
the router, for a measly $3 per month.  :)

Aaron J.

Aaron S. Joyner wrote:

> I've spent the past few days integrating squidGuard with squid and our 
> proprietary compression software.  You should definitely give 
> squidGuard a look, and if you have any configuration troubles, feel 
> free to ask.  If you don't do anything too out of the ordinary it's a 
> breeze - if you stray too far from the beaten path things get... 
> interesting.  :)
>
> http://www.squidguard.org/
>
> Aaron J.
>
>
> Dan Monjar wrote:
>
>> I'm looking for something that will monitor and perhaps block the web 
>> sites my kids go to. Any recommendations?  I'm already doing some 
>> stuff at the router but it is just primarily keyword blocking.
>>
>>
>
>