This is a general overview of how our solutions can be used, please reach out to us to discuss your requirements.
A cloud filter allows you to control information flow into your network, and stays up to date.
The modern web has plenty of content, not all of it is safe or appropriate. A parent or a workplace administrator might need some mechanism to enforce certain rules, to protect his/her children, or to prevent employees from wasting time on websites not related to their work.
Controlling and filtering content at the router level has two benefits:
- It allows you to have a central point where changes you make affect all devices immediately.
- It doesn’t require you to do any modification on target devices (your PCs/tablets/etc), so its far more convenient compared to installing filtering software on every device.
We experimented with different filtering/blocking methods, from whitelisting/blacklisting, tools that fetch databases..etc. These methods had shortcomings; the biggest being the web’s rapid change all the time, new websites pop up and others go offline, keeping up requires enormous resources.
Enforcing filters at home or workplace
“Cloud-filtering” is essentially using the services provided by a dedicated company that works on categorizing the web and keeping up-to-date with the changes. Some companies provide such lists for free and others charge a fee.
OpenDNS is one example. When configured on a router, users’ DNS lookups will be redirected to use a filtered list, therefore enforcing the rules in place. If a user tries to circumvent this by changing their DNS servers manually then DNS resolutions will fail.