The 5 Best Content Filtering Tools– We all are crazy about accessing a free and unlimited Internet. Though, in some circumstances; it would be the best to set restrictions on the sort of content one would be capable of accessing online. This could be to stop children for example from unintentionally surfing sites; that can be regarded as improper for their age. Content filtering is necessary especially if you’re looking for a method; to stop people like your kids from accessing pervasive stuff, or if you’d just need to place a limit on the type of websites; that is accessible for your employees. The market is full of various tools; that allows you to filter the content and this article will present you five best content filtering tools; that is sure to help you in the best way.(also see, How to Protect Your Children While They’re Online)
The 5 Best Content Filtering Tools
Having gained an understanding of the various types of filtering tools available; you can now make an informed choice; with an idea of what to anticipate. Here are five best content filtering tools.
K9 Web Protection
The odds are high that if your content is being obstructed and you are based in a school or company; they are probably employing K9 web protection to limit your access. K9 is one of the commonly used content filtering tools in the world, and this is perhaps because of their high level of content categorization through which they provide administrators to distinguish what content is accessible, and what content is not. Their list covers more than 60 kinds of content, all set up to include the various types of content that you could find on the Internet.
Dansguardian
One more filtering tool relied upon by several Linux users is Dansguardian. Users particularly like it because it enables them to configure numerous aspects of the application, such as totally blocking all images, filtering ads across your home network, control the impacts of content filters, stop the download of files through their extension type, and a whole lot more. The client can run on a host of platforms, including OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS X, HP-UX, Solaris, and Linux. It is undoubtedly the best platform to turn to if you’re looking to filter content on all the computers within a home network.
OpenDNS
If you don’t wish to get too technical in configuring your content filtering tool; then OpenDNS is one answer you might find worthy of your use. OpenDNS operates by replacing your current DNS server, thereby enabling you to filter every connection arising from your home or office, as long as you’ll be able to modify the DNS settings at the router level. You’ll be able to preset your filters that’ll set specific sites on your black or whitelist, and this should enable you to control what websites can or cannot be accessible.
SquidGuard
SquidGuard is a favorite content filtering tool that most users will find simple particularly if they depend on the Squid proxy when connecting to the web. The service gives a wide variety of choices regarding what you can filter, through allowing you to very tightly control what is available and what is not.
Hosts File
For more superior users, there’s the choice of logging onto the hosts file directory of your computer, where you can manually enter a list of IP addresses and what they should be fixed too. In case you still don’t have a full understanding of how the host’s file is meant to work, maybe this brief illustration might make things a bit clearer. Say you’ve gone ahead and logged on to your computer’s hosts file and made an entry for 127.0.0.1 pointed to www.google.com. Every time you’ll have someone search for something on google through that computer, the web browser will only refresh the page, and refuse to gather the results that you might expect from that search.
Conclusion -The 5 Best Content Filtering Tools
If you’d rather have an app that makes the configuration process much more comfortable; then you might want to consider Hostsman as your favored client. All in all, making changes to your host’s file is easy, though one particular problem you might come across has a blacklist where you’ve partly captured the site or string you want to be blocked. In such a case, you won’t have blocked the site you intended to. For better security and privacy, we always recommend to use a reliable VPN service. (also check, Best VPN for School of 2018)
