Don’t Use a Ban List, Use a White-List

Content filtering can be a gruesome task to keep up with.  Sites are popping up all over the place with questionable content.  Instead of trying to keep up with the sites you may not want your kids to see, you should try keeping up with the sites you will allow them to see.  In my case, my son would ask me to check out a web site and add it to the allowed sites list.  This way, I can keep him from seeing things I don’t think he should see… at his age.

White Listing is far easier to manage than ban listing or black listing.  To start, from your FreeProxy Control Center, click the icon for Ban List.  This may seem a bit confusing at first, but once you play with it for a bit, it starts to make sense.

1. Click New
2. Under Ban List Categories, click Add.
3. Category Name: Allowed
4. Click Done

This has added a category named allowed that is completely empty.  You now have to  click Manage Category details to start adding sites you will allow people on your network to visit. Once you click it, the four buttons along the bottom of the screen will be available.

1. Click Add URL/IP
2. Type computingondemand.com
3. press done
4. at the top of the screen click Save and save it wherever you like.  I like to keep things organized so I will save mine in C:\Program Files\Hand-Crafted Software\FreeProxy and I named it White-List.
5. Click Activate
6. When prompted to Activate, press OK
7. Click Done

To associate your White-List with your proxy service you will have to modify the permissions by double clicking Port in the Console.  This is the same place we set the authentication.

1. Click Add Resource
2. from the drop down menu select White-List URL or IP Address
3. for this user group: WindowsUsers.
4. Click Done A few times until you are back at the Main Console.

To activate your White-List, you have to restart the Proxy Service.  Click Start/Stop and press Restart, If it gives you a file error to save just click OK and it will save it for you.

You now have only allowed access to computingondemand.com.  You can add as many sites to the list as you want.

With all of that information, you should be set for a little bit. I enforce the proxy on every machine on my network less my main computer and my WHS.  I have also enabled logging on my proxy to keep track of errors and even see attempted access to web sites.

There is a LOT more you can do with FreeProxy then what I have shown you here.  Experiment with it and when you do something interesting, post your process in our forums and I might update this tutorial with your entry (giving you full credit of course).