Improve your online safety with K9 Web Protection

July 17, 2010

Looking after children in the real world is already a tough job so trying to protect them on the internet is even harder.  With inappropriate material and rouge software rife, K9 Web protection not only helps to safeguard your children but also your computer.

Malware infection is now the primary method used by criminal gangs to obtain information about you, including your passwords, and the rate of infection over the first six months of 2010 has skyrocketed.

For home users, K9 Web Protection is a simple and free way to increase the layers security for an all round defence.  If does not replace you antivirus, antimalware or firewall software but sits beside it to protect the user within the browser.

K9 Web Protection is a simple and free way to increase the layers security for an all round defence

How do I get it?

K9 available for Windows and Mac OSX users and is free to download for home users and requires a few simple steps:

  1. Obtain a license code from K9. This is sent via email.
  2. Download the software from the website
  3. Installation is a very simple process but for further reference, K9 have a very informative quick start guide.
  4. During the installation you will be asked for a license code.  You will find this in the email.
  5. You will also be prompted for a password.  WARNING: Do not forget this because it is required to adjust settings and uninstall the product.
  6. Some firewalls will stop K9 Web Protection from working or disable some functionality.  Ensure that k9filter.exe is added to the firewall and is allowed to access the internet.

Once installed, you need to reboot your computer.

Getting Started

After the installation has completed, open a web browser and navigate to http://127.0.0.1:2372/.

On the home page, the Setup button in the middle of the page allows you configure the software.

K9 Home Page

This reveals a configuration menu on left hand side with:

  • Web Categories to Block – used to determine which sites get blocked
  • Time Restrictions – to prevent browsing outside specified times
  • Web Site Exceptions – to allow or block specific websites
  • Blocking Effects – how K9 handles a blocked website
  • URL Keywords – to block sites that have specific words in the URL
  • Advanced – to set various options, like safesearch
  • Password/Email – to change you K9 password or email
  • K9 Update – to install updates to the software

Web Categories to Block

The standard installation already has a number of default categories set.

K9 Setup Web Categories to Block

These categories are automatically updated by K9

Time Restrictions

The time restrictions give you the control to allow or deny access to web sites during specific times.

K9 Setup Time Restrictions

NightGuard blocks access overnight whilst the custom option enables you to set specific times to block or allow access.

Web Site Exceptions

This lets you override the sites listed in the categories to either allow or block access.

K9 Setup Web Site Exceptions

Blocking Effects

Determines what action K9 takes when encountering a blocked site.

K9 Setup Blocking Effects

URL Keywords

This blocks access to websites where the URL contains a word or part of a word.

K9 Setup URL Keywords

So entering “goo*” would block google.

Advanced

Used to set a number of features but specifically “Safe Search”. 

K9 Setup Advanced

“Safe Search” is employed on Google, MSN/Live, Yahoo, Ask, A9, Altavista and Orange and filters any searches on these search engines.

Password/Email

Use this option to change your password or registered email.

K9 Setup Password and Email

K9 Update

To check if you have the latest version of the software or to see if K9 Web Protection needs a software update.

K9 Setup Update

Checking Activity

K9 logs every access to the internet from the browser letting you drill down by either category or request.

K9 Activity Summary

Clicking the category or request shows the detail and displays every request used to load a page.

K9 Activity Detail

Summary

There is no doubt that the internet is a great arena for learning and has opened up the world to us but it's also opened it up for criminal activities and nefarious sites.  Even when they don't intend to, most people, including your children, run into pornography, gambling and even predators on the Internet.

K9 Web protection does not solve these issues completely but it provides an excellent layer in the whole security model.