contentfilter.co.uk – what is, and what does a web content

contentfilter.co.uk – what is, and what does a web content filter do?

A web content filter has become essential as the popularity and usage of the internet has increased over the last decade. The purpose of a web content filter is to enable certain areas of the internet to be made inaccessible and to prevent the access of known mal-ware hosts. As security threats have increased, the need for a web content filter has also increased.
The most commonly used and most popular web content filter used is a statistical filter called Bayesian filter.
There are two major areas where web content filters are used, within schools and within organisations. Schools quite clearly have the responsibility of ensuring that students can only have access to suitable and relevant sites. This therefore means using a web content filter to ensure sites such pornography and often games cannot be accessed. This is to ensure that students are doing what they are expected to be doing in their classes but also for their own safety. Even more importantly for schools, chat rooms and often social networking sites must be made inaccessible using a web content filter. This is due to numerous incidents highlighted in the press in previous years where school children have been groomed whilst at school on chat rooms.
Organisations wish to use web content filters for similar reasons to schools, to ensure certain websites can not be accessed. Although one of the major reasons is for the security aspect which the content filters brings.
As previously mentioned, a web content filter can be used to ensure malware does not access a system. Many people will have a web content filter on their email account, this will often scan attachments on emails to inform the receiver whether the attachment is safe to open or not. The web content filter can also perform to only allow certain types of files to be opened.
Web content filters are not just used by schools and organisations, many people use them within their own homes. Many parents choose to use web content filters to ensure children can not access certain websites, similar to in schools. It is often paramount for some children to not be able to access some sites, especially after so many children have been groomed in the past. There are now numerous family friendly web content filters which have been created to help support and advice parents on the dangers of the Internet. It is hoped that in the future all web browsers will offer support to parents in relation to securing their internet to ensure only certain websites can be accessed. Helpfully for anybody wishing to download such a family content web filter, they can do for free as there are many providers providing free software. This means that parents can ensure they have secured their internet without any expense. Not only this, but it also means they can leave their child alone on the computer accessing the internet, without having to worry.