K9 Web Protection
Monday, August 13, 2007 at 02:26PM Free Cyber Watchdog!
by Bryce Mortensen
Introduction
Blue Coat Systems has recently released a product that can help us parents in our fight to filter the media that enters our homes. They are now offering a new product called K9 Web Protection which is free for home use. Well, since most of our home computers reside in the home, you will more than likely fall in within the free licensing of this product. This product is by far the best filtering product I have come across that is offered for free. It offers a wealth of options and control that can help you feel comfortable that your family is protected. You may find that a purchased product provides more granular control, but you cannot beat the price. Blue Coat has been making enterpise ready solutions for large companies for years. They have taken this knowledge and some of their methodoligies and have placed them into this product. Let’s take a look!
Requirements
Currently their is a version available for Windows 2000/XP and another for Windows Vista. Windows Vista also includes a built-in web filter. If you are interested in this, please look at my other other article found here. The footprint of the product is rather small (about 25MB) and in my testing no decrease in performance was detected. The product is lightweight, simple, and can help protect your family.
Installation
You must first obtain the installation package and a license key from the Blue Coat K9 Web Protection website http://www.k9webprotection.com/. You will need to provide a valid email address for this. Once you have provided an address, a license key will be emailed to you. To begin installation download the appropriate package and run it.