Network admins, can u recommend solution?

[Richter]

I'm looking for a web filtering software that has both a client side and server side which will allow me to manage the web sites that the client computers can visit from a computer running the server side of the software.

Does anyone know of a particular software that does this ?

Thanks in advsnce to anyone who can help out

 

[Boscoh]

Check out Websense - http://www.websense.com

They just added a "Remote Filtering" module to their new 6.0 version. I haven't used it, but I think it's just an app that installs on systems to enforce web filtering policies when they're disconnected from the network. It probably connects to a Websense server you have sitting in your DMZ via SSL to download updated policies/URL blocklists. When the system is inside the network, I'm sure the app deactivates and lets the Websense server do the filtering.

Websense is good stuff, it's hard to beat it. It is quite expensive though. You'll easily spend a couple grand a year. It can achieve its ROI very, very quickly though.

 

[Richter]

I guess I should have mentioned I need to do this for much cheaper. I have a budget for purchases but nothing like that.

 

[Boscoh]

If you dont have any remote clients, you dont really need any client-side software to do this. Just look into server-side content filtering solutions. You either deploy these as a proxy, or use them in conjunction with certain firewalls as a "transparent" proxy, which means you dont have to configure your clients to use a proxy server.

The free one that I know of is Squid. I think DansGuardian has a price attached to it to update the URL database but is otherwise free (dont quote me on that). The last time I messed with Squid, it was pretty complex to setup. There are a lot of people that swear by it though.

Other than that, they arent really cheap. You can look at N2H2, SurfControl, and Websense to name some of the bigger ones.

 

[ivwshane]

How about clarkconnect (you just need a spare computer).
http://clarkconnect.com/info/features.php?type=filters

 

[skyking]

for commercial use by up to 99 computers, the one time license fee for dansguardian is $89.
It uses phraselists for true content filtering, not just URL blocking. Phraselists are free.
you can get a URL susbcription from urlblacklist.com for $70 per year, for 1 update per month.
You can evaluate all the above for free.