Are you looking for good content filtering tools in the web. Here listed below are 5 good content filtering tools available on the net.

1. DansGuardian: DansGaurdian is an award wining web content filterign proxy for Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS X, HP-UX, and Solaris that uses Squid to do all the fetching. This filtering tool filters using multiple methods. These methods include URL and domain filtering, content phrase filtering, PICS filtering, MIME filtering, file extension filtering, POST limiting.

The content phrase filtering will check for pages that contain profanities and phrases often associated with pornography and other undesirable content. The POST filtering allows you to block or limit web upload. The URL and domain filtering is able to handle huge lists and is significantly faster than squidGuard.

The main features of DansGuardian 2.4 are as follows:

• Significantly cheaper than IGear (one of the best commercial filters).
• Can block adverts by the use of an advert URL block list.
• Can filter text and HTML pages for obscene (sexual, racial, violent, etc) content.
• Uses an advanced phrase weighting system to reduce over or under blocking.
• Can filter sites using the PICS labeling system.
• Can filter according to MIME type and file extension.
• Can filter according to URLs including Regular Expression URLs.
• URL filtering is compatible with squidGuard black lists.
• The URL filtering is able to filter https requests.
• Can work in a ‘whitelist’ mode where all sites except those listed are blocked.
• Can block all IP based URLs.
• Is able to block sites when users try using the IP address of the site instead.
• Produces a log in a very human readable format.
• Optionally produces a log in CSV format for easy import into databases etc.
• Is able to log the username using either Ident or basic proxy authentication.
• It has the ability to switch off filtering for specified sites, parts of sites, browser IPs and usernames.
• Can block specified source IPs and usernames.
• Can block or limit web uploading (e.g. attachments in Hotmail).
• Has the ability to work in a stealth mode where it logs sites that would have been blocked, but does not block them. This allows you to monitor your users without them knowing.
• Uses a very intelligent algorithm to match phrases in web pages mixed in with HTML code and white space.
• Big5, Unicode and top-bit set characters can be used in search phrases.
• DansGuardian 2.4.0 is over 6 times faster than DansGuardian 1.x.x.
• URL filtering is significantly faster than squidGuard.
• The configuration lists use the same incredibly fast code that allows them all to be hundreds of thousands of entries long.
• 100% C++ and can compile on GCC 3.
• Can be made to re-read config files with a HUP signal.
• Works perfectly in conjunction with Squid and Oops. Also see this important information.
• Has no 3rd party library requirements (no nb++ as was used in version 1) so can be installed much easier and so is also provided as an RPM.
• Supports (adds) the squid X-Forwarded-For header line.
• Supports compressed (Content-Encoding gzip and deflate) HTML.
• Can be made to only listen on 1 IP.

Read More: Download DansGuardian 2.4

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2. K9 is another content filtering tool for your home computer. Its jobe is to provide you with a family-safte internet experience, where you control the internet content that enters your home. K9 Web Protection implements the same enterprise-class Web filtering technology used by Blue Coat’s Fortune 500 customers around the world, wrapped in simple, friendly, and reliable software for your Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista computer.

Blue Coat’s unique Web filtering technology divides Internet content into 60 distinct categories. These categories are stored in the master Blue Coat database, through which they maintain and update more than 15 million ratings of websites and domains. A Web site will fall into one or more of these categories, based on the content of the site. To meet your particular needs and preferences, you can configure the software to block or allow specific categories.

Read More: To Download and Know more about K9

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3. OpenDNS: OpenDNS is the leading provider of free security and infrastructure services that make the Internet safer through integrated Web content filtering, anti-phishing and DNS. OpenDNS services enable consumers and network administrators to secure their networks from online threats, reduce costs and enforce Internet-use policies. OpenDNS is used today by millions of users and organizations around the world.

Navigation

• Browser Shortcuts let your users map a short term to a long URL via the address bar.
• Typo correction auto-corrects the most common typos in top-level domains.
• OpenDNS Guide provides helpful search results when your users try to visit a Web site that isn’t resolving.

Read More: Start Using OpenDNS

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4. SquidGuard: Its an URL redirector used to use blacklists with the proxysoftware Squid. There are two big advantages to squidguard: it is fast and it is free. SquidGuard is published under GNU Public License.

Current version: 1.4

New Features:

• Authentication against mysql database.
• Configurable default behaviour.
• Further enhancements and bug fixes.

Read More: SquidGuard
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5. Hosts file: The hosts file is a computer file used to store information on where to find a node on a computer network. This file maps hostnames to IP addresses. The hosts file is used as a supplement to (or a replacement of) the Domain Name System (DNS) on networks of varying sizes. Unlike DNS, the hosts file is under the control of the local computer’s administrator.

The hosts file has no extension and can be edited using most text editors.

Read More: DNS

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