I can understand why some may like the feature as you describe it, but many sites that educators use are dual listed when only one page may have the shopping feature so the entire site is now blocked. We agree to disagree, that said, is there a way other than white listing sites to get around this?
I understand your point, but then I have had other admins that run large systems that demanded that the multiple category system come back (Cobion worked in a similar manner in V6)... I guess each system has their pros and cons, and it's just one of those things where one solution can't satisfy everybody.
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Excellent Choice of filter system! I am very pleased!! I was disappointed with the Surf Control...much prefer the multiple category system. So, for instance, I can allow Health sites, but still block Health sites that include Nudity. Or allow shopping sites, but not if they contain Provocative Attire. So in most cases, if you setup carefully, thinking through your block vs. allow strategy, and arrange your categories and subcategories carefully, your teachers should be able to get their sites, but still protect the students. You can also setup different profiles for different users, based on network login ID, IP address, etc. So you could have a very restrictive profile for students, but a less strict one for faculty/staff.
Question: does the Astaro implementation include the Secure Computing "Hierarchy" scheme? So certain categories are evaluated, or carry more "weight" than others when there's an allow/block conflict?
So, for instance, I can allow Health sites, but still block Health sites that include Nudity. Or allow shopping sites, but not if they contain Provocative Attire.
I see that, but what about the other way around? I want to block games, but not educational sites. If a site is an educational game, it will get both categories, and be blocked. I'm seeing this for for kids/educational/games overlap, and games/sports overlap as well.
I'm shamelessly bumping this topic, cause it is causing me such a headache.
I've tried the suggested "Block by default" configuration for the proxy profiles, so that a match allows the site intead of a match denying it (which I don't like btw), but that doesn't work for me. With this setup, when a site is blocked the proxy no longer provides a category/reason why.
Someone please tell me they've found a decent workaround for this, or that at least something is coming down the pipe that might help us out. My incredibly painful phone call to support basically ended with a "tough luck".
I'm really not happy with Astaro lack of testing on this major change.
This has highlighted an issue with the content filter. I assumed that 'Block access to uncategorised websites' would block access to websites that were not mapped to specific categories.
However, it *allows* all these unmapped sub-categories.
I suggest an additional tick box 'Block access to unmapped subcategories' as a feature request.
