When most people think of an Internet content filter, they think of an application that blocks a list of known inappropriate websites. However, there’s a lot more your content filter could be doing for your school, business or organization—especially when working together with a bandwidth monitoring tool.
The Web content filter that works off of a “blacklist” is old technology. Unsophisticated and unable to handle sites it doesn’t know about, the blacklist content filter merely band-aids the problem of non-authorized website viewing. You’ll probably be surprised to find out that there are filters today which will actively check the content of “gray” websites a user wants to see—even through a Google search—now.
This kind of filter is called ‘true’ or ‘intelligent’, as it compares website content against administrator-entered words and phrases. After running these through weightings and algorithms, it decides whether to show the site to the user or not. The true content filter knows how to deal with websites it’s never seen before.
Now let’s look at a typical application within the school computer lab. First, with just a blacklist filter which the administrator feels is adequate. The class is supposed to watch an educational video. Much to almost everyone’s annoyance, though, the video is ‘hiccupping’ and practically unwatchable. Why? Two students at the back of the room are playing an online game from a new website not included on the blacklist, and tying up needed network bandwidth with this unauthorized content.
Now let’s assume the school has a true content filter in place. The students file in to watch the educational video. When the two independently-minded individuals try to get onto the online gaming site, this time the filter catches non-authorized terms and blocks access to the site. Completely unaware, the rest of the students go on watching the uninterrupted video.
This is a simple example of how a more sophisticated, true content filter can improve the classroom learning experience over an old blacklist-driven blocker. Using this kind of filter will free up network bandwidth for your organization without you having to pay any attention to it after setup.
To see an example of an effective true content filter product that has been protecting schools and students from inappropriate Web content for over six years, click here.
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