Is web blocking software really that useful?

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Fawfulfan

Fawfulfan

The Tortured Planet guy
From my experience, these programs either block so many things that you can't do your job/schoolwork, or they don't block anything. I think web blockers are really primitive and aren't useful. Do you agree?
 
Agreed, it would be infinitely more useful to just have somebody walk around checking out what people are doing on public computers, rather than blocking everything. If Jimmy is so hell-bent on getting on those websites, he's gonna find a way, even with the blocker. :P
 
For my corsework, one of the topics was "Do a powerpoint presentation on a topic of your choice" I done it on the history of gaming as that is a topic I would like to do, but the school blocker blocked every site with the name Game in it, it was a pain in the but but I mannagd to get around it, which makes me wonder why they used it in the first place, so no, I don't find them usefull, I find them a hazzerd to college work.
 
verifiaman said:
its retarded. especially if youknow the administrative passowrds
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Apparently, that isn't required anymore. Someone at my school found a Bypass that would get rid of the filter. It's amazing that none of the staff haven't found the program yet, even when it is staring right in their faces.
 
Of course they're pointless, every kid with an IQ over 30 knows how to get round them these days, which would be great since it shows computing skills, except they don't even know what the damn filter evasion sites actually do. In today's society even your next door neighbour's dog knows how to get round the things so they might as well save the money and get rid of them all together.

super said:
For my corsework, one of the topics was "Do a powerpoint presentation on a topic of your choice" I done it on the history of gaming as that is a topic I would like to do, but the school blocker blocked every site with the name Game in it, it was a pain in the but but I mannagd to get around it, which makes me wonder why they used it in the first place, so no, I don't find them usefull, I find them a hazzerd to college work.
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But if you know the right people then you don't even need to get round it because you can get Xbox.com and Bungie.net along with your own website unblocked for free so you can do your ICT coursework and show everyone up...

sorry, just went on a silly little tangent there...
 
Fox Boy is right. Seriously. I can't even get on here from school because its blocked for "Games". What the **** tacos is happening to this world?!
 
Cue said:
But if you know the right people then you don't even need to get round it because you can get Xbox.com and Bungie.net along with your own website unblocked for free so you can do your ICT coursework and show everyone up...

sorry, just went on a silly little tangent there...
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Hah, I know what you mean. I got sepwich unblocked at my secondary school.
 
I do wish I knew about proxies back when I was in high school and this was a problem. Web blocking only works on the unknowledgeable and undetermined. Unfortunately, that applies to the majority of people affected by said blocking, which included myself at one point.
 
I.

HATE.

WEB BLOCKERS.

I'd rather have freedom to do whatever I want with the internet during my free periods. In class, I don't even access sites that aren't related to the task at hand (says the guy who logs onto IRC sometimes during class)

It's just an excuse for teachers to be lazy and not watch their students.

Our school blocker (which is controlled by the Department Of Education, not us) is smart, too. It doesn't block research sites even if they're about games (i've read many game-related wikipedia articles out of boredom), and it blocks pretty much every proxy site out there. I think it may even actively block sites too, but that doesn't explain why I can still access CAD-Comic, EEggs.com, VG Cats and EsperNet. (can't access sepwich or srb2.org though)
 
My oppinion is, that they are just uselsss. I know they are somewhat useful on some occasions, an example would be a student looking up the answers on a quiz or something. But otherwise, I think that they are completley useless. Playing a little internet game at school doesn't hurt anything, and yet those are blocked. One major thing that is weird for blocking is probably porn sites. I honestly dont think LOOKING at porn at school is a problem, but like I said, it may only be my oppinion.

If they should be blocking anything it should be what I said earlier. All in all, I think web blockers are 25% useful, and 75% complete fail.
 
You know what else? Some web blockers don't even do anything! My own school uses one called SonicWall, and I'm currently typing this on a school computer. I can access any game I want at school, and probably could look at naughty pictures (But I won't).

But at my previous high school, we had a blocker called WebSense, and it blocked just about EVERYTHING. I looked up the program, and found out it works by searching for certain keywords from a list and blocks any site that mentions those words. It even blocked sites that mention the words "sports", "uncategorized", and "not allowed"! This program was so sensitive, in fact, that it would sometimes block sites that our teacher told us all to go to in his or her instructions. Sometimes the administrators would have to spend time unblock specific sites, delaying school projects.

Anyway, web blocking programs are clearly primitive. It's like a farmer spotting weeds in his crop field, and responding by setting his entire field on fire, then proudly proclaiming that kind of weed extinct because he can't see it anymore.
 
Haha, I've probably said this before, but this kind of stuff is one reason why I love home schooling. There's basically no restrictions to worry about whatsoever.
 
Blue Warrior said:
Haha, I've probably said this before, but this kind of stuff is one reason why I love home schooling. There's basically no restrictions to worry about whatsoever.
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This. Even though I have never needed to deal with a web blocker, I can tell there pretty easy to break from what everyone is saying.
 
What I find more annoying than the web blockers themselves is the fact that when the school offers "A free lesson", everything that's even mildly fun is blocked. Unless you go to page 156 on a Google search, chances are you ain't gonna get the Pacman flash game.

To be honest, I think that "Free" lessons are "Find websites for us to block" lessons.
 
Web blockers are important tools to use against porn, b&g videos, etc. I do agree with you guys, though; what they have out there for web blockers is simply not sufficient anymore. It's just like Fawfulfan says; either they block too much or too little, they are WAY too easy to get around, and if you want one, they can sometimes be a pain to install. We need some updates, people!
 
Hurr.

Those things are USELESS.
My schools blocker blocks all gaming sites,
entertainment(not school related),
and such, yet all pornography sites are still accessible.
What, is pornography considered education?
Google image search is unrestricted.
I can access srb2.org
I can access Skulltag.com
I can even access EsperNet and all other IRC sites with my school
computers, in addition to the teachers not being technically skilled enough to set passwords.
So, uhm, heheh. Useless.
 
Web blockers ARE useless...If you know where to find a proxy, and at least someone at my school does, but they've blocked most of them and I'm kinda skeptical about checking out some of these proxy programs to get around them...and can't you just use a batch file to get the administrator's password?
 
BSafe Online is quite a good web blocker. In fact, it actually blocks specific pages in Wikipedia, but not the whole thing. I really like it; because I don't want to accidentally see a picture of something nasty.
 
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