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I keep seeing references to something called Squid, but I take it that's only for Linux. Rather than needlessly pay $1,000+ bucks for a content filtering subscription on our firewall, I'm seeking an alternate method (and if it's free, all the better!). Any ideas?

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    What stops you from using the (free) Squid on a (free) virtual machine with a (free) Linux?
    – mailq
    Aug 11, 2011 at 22:17
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    What stops you from using the (free) Squid on Windows? Aug 11, 2011 at 22:45

3 Answers 3

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I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I've done this before, but the "cheapest" way I've found to do this (assuming the user can't install or otherwise use third-party web browser software) is to use Group Policy to configure Internet Explorer to use a bogus HTTP / HTTPS proxy server (i.e. an IP / port that doesn't answer-- preferably one that actually rejects the TCP connection attempt). I put "permitted" web sites into the proxy bypass list.

It's a very "cheap" way to do what you're looking for and utterly easy to bypass if the user can install or use third-party browser software.

One "righter" way to do this would be to force outbound HTTP / HTTPS through a proxy server that allows for per-user ACLs. Squid with NTLM authentication can do this with no software licensing cost and can provide a fairly nice transparent authentication experience for domain-joined Windows machines accessing web sites through it. You can run Squid on Windows if you're adverse to running it on Linux. Squid on Windows with Active Directory-based authentication is fairly easy to setup.

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  • Does this 'bogus' proxy method work for browsers other than Chrome?
    – user235422
    Dec 22, 2016 at 11:28
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OpenDNS Enterprise is one solution you might consider.

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How many computers? If a small number, use Windows DHCP Server to reserve their IPs from a range that has firewall rules allowing port 80/443 access only to the whitelist.

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  • How would I configure this whitelist? That's what I'm trying to figure out.
    – Bigbio2002
    Aug 11, 2011 at 22:43
  • what firewall/version?
    – Paul
    Aug 11, 2011 at 22:45
  • The built-in Windows firewall. We also have a Sonicwall device we could configure.
    – Bigbio2002
    Aug 12, 2011 at 15:44

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