Like I mentionned in my previous post, this product works, but since it is not very transparent theres no way i can use it. If they ever offer us the possibility to personalize the page displayed when accessing a prohibited URL, I'll be glad to use it, but that "K9 filtering alert, this page has been blocked because it is in your computer's "Always Block" list." wont do it for old kids!

But thanks for the suggestion anyway!

Could you please put me on a trail. I dont want anything fancy like "skanky porn sites" (you are crazy LOL!!) but just some "eror 404 this page cannot be found" kind of boring message!
I,m sure it's pretty complicated to manage, but could you please put me on a trail. And from there I'll see how fast i can learn!

:p

OK sorry I must have not read your previous post all the way....


If you are running 10.5 you can enable parental controls which does some of that, and there is also a firefox add on called "Public Fox" which I also use at work and it has a built in black/white list where you can allow/disallow full URLs, but I don't use it for filtering. We have a corporate filter system at work, I just use Public Fox to lock down FireFox preferences.

Now, you can modify the /etc/hosts file I believe and put in manual redirects to 127.0.0.1 to a whole list of sites but that is a lot of leg work and has margin for error. Redirecting to the local host should produce a 404 not found error since you most likely aren't hosting any websites off of your Mac at home. However, it will clearly show that you are trying to hit 127.0.0.1 and if your kid knows that is the local host then you well, are defeating your purpose I suppose.

I work at a high school managing thousands of Macs and I have seen quite a few dedicated and smart teenagers waste all of their time at school to just figure out how to bypass something. It is funny how something that like will take up all their time but some of them won't complete their studies, but that is a whole different subject.

Back to Fasterfox for firefox. You can use that to block sites and it will redirect most likely to a 404 but if your kid is smart he will just run a web browser off a disk image or a thumb drive and bypass everything you do anyway, unless you use a system wide filtering app like K-9 web protection.

I hate to say it, but with my experience with teenagers, and I don't have any kids of my own (just have to work with them) that the best method is just talking to them. I have kids try to hack my network and the web filter every day of school non stop and no matter what I do won't stop them from trying unless I have the administration talk to them and let them know the severity of the consequences.

Privoxy is a very flexible filtering proxy, although it can be daunting to set up until you get used to it.

starter is here:

http://www.ex-parrot.com/pete/upside-down-ternet.html

He's using a proxy server to harass wireless leechers but the basics are the same.

My nightmare is over! Finally found an easy (but not free) solution!

Let me share with you guys the results of my tests!

OpenDNS, PithHelmet, the famous "etc/hosts" command on the Terminal, Northern Softwork's Hostal, Mac Os X's Parental Control and most of the traditionnal Parental control softwares ONLY ALLOW YOU TO BLOCK ENTIRE DOMAINS.

If you have young kids that you wish to protect agains general categories of websites or specific domains (but not specific URL or subdomains), all these previous softs I mentionned will do the job!

BUT

If like me you need to block a specific URL (for exemple, just one specific page on myspace.com, BUT NOT all the pages on myspace.com), you can install K9 Web Protection (for free!). Be aware that when rying to access a URL you volontary blocked, a "K9 filter alert" will be displayed, and you cannot change,redirect, or personalize that displayed page.

FINALLY

If like me you need an application that will be completely transparent when blocking a website, an application that lets you block either categories of websites, subdomains or very specific URL's, you need...

Content Barrier (Mac or PC, 30 day free trial available, or else you'll have to buy it!)

That soft is amazing, the only place you can locate it on your computer is in "My application". When accessing a prohibited URL, it lets you choose where to redirect it (in my case, for prohibited myspace.com/exemple, is automatically redirected to myspace.com) which simply looks like the page doesnt exist or a bug, or something weird but for which my teen cant blame me!

There are also many features to receive printscreens every 1 minute or 1 hour of what's happening on your computer, you can also schedual whatever you want or dont want your kid/teen to do, it's very easy to set up, and it's got more features than I'll ever need to use!

There's also one complicated/free way to accomplish this, but be prepared to read and get headaches before you ever reach your goal! Just in case you want to follow that trail here's what I had gathered :
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...10117003458918
http://dansguardian.org/?page=whatisdg
http://www.ex-parrot.com/pete/upside-down-ternet.html

Thanks to everyone who offered me their help and suggestion!

:)