Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Block Web Content?
First time accepted submitter willoughby writes "Many routers today have the capability to block web content. And you all know about browser addons like noscript & adblock. But where is the 'proper' place for such content blocking? Is it best to have the router only route packets & do the content blocking on each machine? If using the content blocking feature in the router, will performance degrade if the list of blocked content grows large? Where is the best place to filter/block web content?"
Or, perhaps, sitting down with your users and discussing with them how to surf intelligently and safely.
And you all know about browser addons like noscript & adblock. But where is the 'proper' place for such content blocking?
If you're talking about adblocking, the 'proper' place is at your visual cortex where images are processed -- and I know I'm alone in that unpopular view. Blocking ads is like throwing a soda can out a car window in that if one person does it, it's not a problem and it appears to benefit them modestly. But if everyone does it, it ruins the very thing you're enjoying. I can understand why you'd do it if the ad was a massive flash blob but many ads by Google or just images aren't resource intensive.
I've clicked on ads and purchased something twice in my life from ads on a site. Once it was cheap shirts with funny designs on them (I needed new gym shirts) and the other was an eBay auction with a Buy It Now price lower than what I was looking at on that site (not sure how that works). I consider myself a pretty sophisticated person who is "above" advertising but anecdote-wise it's worked on me twice that I can think of. Removing that rare occurrence completely ruins the revenue model.
My work here is dung.
This is the right answer. There's nothing wrong with ad blocking on the client, but if you want to block content for a whole bunch of users, a proxy is the answer. squid really is easy to set up.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I use OpenDNS...works well and works regardless sof browser.
Why do you want to block content for a whole bunch of users? Do you run a dictatorship?
The most obvious example which does not support your jerking knee or twisted panties is keeping known malware off of a corporate network.
Content blocking should be done on the client because it's the only place where the user has control over the blocking.
If it's your computer, sure. (That includes those which are owned by the state but which you have access to, e.g. at the library.) If it's not your computer, fuck off. It's not your computer.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
To add on to this, it is good to block all DNS except a few trusted servers anyway. If someone gets a 'DNSChanger' style virus it will show up on the firewall pretty quick.
Unplug your modem. Internet is now filtered. Enjoy your day!
This is an appropriate response given the bullshit question.
There are different approaches for blocking content, depending on if you're running an ISP, a large Enterprise, a small business, or are just a home user. There are different approaches depending on what TYPE of content you're trying to block, and WHY you're blocking it.
There is no simple, single answer to the question other than "well it all depends".
Adblock is a user-friendly plugin which is, put simply, nothing more than a blacklist of various hosts which serve advertising content. The security aspects of this approach are incidental- it's not a security program it's for avoiding ads.
If you're running an Enterprise or are a more tech-savvy user it's usually better to maintain your own blacklist, either at the edge router or via a hosts file on the local machine (depending on network size and complexity, and capability of your edge routers). If you're just a plain Joe Average, it's probably better to do it per-machine, especially if you're using a laptop which you're going to use in different locations.
NoScript is not, by design, an ad-blocker. It is a script-blocker, and is a security program- ad blocking is incidental. It has the added advantage of operating on a whitelist, so new sources of threats will be caught by default. It blocks a variety of scripting languages from any location you have not specifically allowed, in addition to several other types of browser exploit vectors. For the technical user it is vastly superior to Adblock, but for people who are not so "internet savvy" it can be confusing and frustrating to have to maintain your own whitelist.
Perhaps if the submitter would give us something more specific as to his needs, he'd get better answers.