The internet can be a fantastic place to learn, have fun, talk with old friends and much more! It can also be a dangerous place full of sin and corruption. One of the best ways to prevent you and your family from having to deal with the dark side of the internet is to install an internet filter. In Part I of our look at how to install an internet filter, we looked at how to install a browser-based filter for Internet Explorer. This is a great place to start since Internet Explorer is installed on all most every computer. However, in recent years, several other great internet browsers have been developed that have been adopted by users as their primary choice for surfing the web. The top two of these alternate browsers for Windows are Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
As I mentioned in the previous post, while Chrome is a fantastic, light-weight, and fast browser, it does not fully support extensions. While Chrome does support extensions in the developers and beta build, I would not recommend installing these unless you want to develop extensions for yourself or are ok with a buggier browser. Until Chrome more fully supports extensions to the public, I would not recommend using it if you desire to use a browser-based filter. I will be covering in the next post how to install an filter that is system-wide that will let you filter any browser.
This leaves us with Firefox. One of the greatest developments of Firefox is the extensibility of the browser. This means that if you want to add a feature to the browser, you can simply create an extension that will preform the task you desire. You can find an extension for just about anything: from blocking ads on webpages to downloading youtube videos to finding the best deal on a purchase to finding new websites. We are going to look at an extension to filter out inappropriate content.
Mozilla Firefox
If you do not have Firefox installed on your computer, you can download it for free from Mozilla’s site. (_link_)
Installation
ProCon Latte
The extension we are going to be using is called ProCon Latte. There are two ways to install extensions, also called add-ons. The first way is to go to the Tools menu and select Add-ons and search from the Add-ons dialog box for extensions. The second way, the way I will cover, is to visit Mozilla’s Add-ons for Firefox site and search for the ProCon Latte add-on.
You will notice that this is an experimental extension so you need to check the box that says “Let me install this experimental add-on.” Once you have checked that box, you are able to click on “Add to Firefox.”
After agreeing to the ProCon Latte End User License Agreement, the installation process will begin.
(Click Install after the timer has ended)
After installation, Firefox will need to be restarted so make sure any work you have opened in Firefox is saved and hit Restart Firefox.
Configuration
When Firefox comes back up, you will be presented with the Add-ons dialog box. Scroll down to ProCon Latte and click on Options. You can also access ProCon Latte’s options by selecting ProCon Latte under the Tools menu.
This is the ProCon Latte main settings screen. The first thing we want to do is set a password for the filter so that it cannot be disabled except by those who are supposed to be able to disable it. Click on “Set Password…”
As I mentioned in Part I, make sure you use a password that is not easily guessed to keep the filter secure.
Now we need to turn on the filter. To do so, click on Main Filter at the top.
Main Filter
Enabling the filter is as easy as checking the box that says “Enable Explicit Material Filter”, so do that. If you would like to view or edit the list that it filters against, click on “Edit List…” (Warning, it contains explicit words, that’s how it knows what to filter)
I like to add a custom warning message. I usually have it give a reminder as to what should be put in front of our eyes:
I will set nothing wicked before my eyes; I hate the work of those who fall away; It shall not cling to me. ~ Psalm 101:3
The degree of filtering can be quickly set by using the Presets at the bottom. Here’s a brief overview of the options there:
- Secure allows only the sites that are on the Whitelist (we’ll look at in a moment) to be visited. This is locks the internet down and restricts all traffic to only that of the Whitelist.
- Moderate allows the filter to work normally on any website. If the user browses to a website that contains an item on the Explicit Material List, the site is blocked.
- Light allows only specific sites to be blocked. This leaves the internet completely open except for the sites the you want to block. Seeing this mostly defeats the purpose of having an internet filter, apart from a handful of sites, I would not recommend using this setting.
Whitelist
There are always some websites that will be flagged as containing explicit material but it really doesn’t. Often you see this on news websites. When there is a story dealing with, for a lack of a better way to say it, the depravity of man, and because of the subject the site will be blocked. To get around this we have the Whitelist. The Whitelist flags any website that you enter as not being filtered. This can be very helpful in accessing some sites but needs to be used with care as over use can allow sites that should be blocked to get past the filter and defeat the purpose of the filter. If you want to use the Whitelist, check the Enable Whitelist box.
Profanity Filter
(Warning: The Profanity Filter screen shows the list of profanity it filters)
The Profanity Filter takes a website with profanity on it and replaces it with any text you would like. You can enter the text you want to replace the profanity. By default it is set to replace it as “***”. To enable the Profanity Filter, check the Enable Profanity Filter box.
While it may seem redundant to have the Main Filter and the Profanity Filter, the Profanity filter allows you to disable the Main Filter but still have profanity removed from websites. Personally, I don’t see why you would want to have the Main Filter disabled but I suppose it’s a nice option to have.
When you are finished with the Main Filter, Whitelist, and Profanity Filter, click back on the General tab. You should now see the filters and lists that you enabled have green check marks next to them under the status section. When you are finished, click Ok.
Testing the Filter
As I mentioned in Part I, to test the filter in a safe manner head to http://www.biblebasedwebsites.com/resources/content-filters/ and select a type to test at the bottom of the screen. This is a safe way to test the filter because these pages only contain text. That way if you forgot to check a box to the filter is disabled, all you see is the text and not something you don’t want to!
When a site is blocked, you should now see a banner at the top of your browser that looks something like this:
You will notice you now have some Options. These options are to either go “Back” to the previous page you were on, “Continue” on to the site after entering the password for the filter or the view the “Preferences” for the filter. These are nice options as they allow navigation to continue either forwards or backwards while still filtering. Also, it is nice to able to quickly access the preferences (after entering the password) so you can quickly add websites to the Whitelist if needed.
Conclusion
I hope that through the use of this tool, you and your family will be safe on the internet. It is good, however, to remember that no tool is perfect, therefore, some further tweaking may be needed and we still need to remain vigilant to keep our guard up against sin. Keep growing closer to Christ!
In Part III of Installing An Internet Filter, we will look at how to install and setup a system-wide filter via a proxy server. If you have any questions or comments about installing the ProCon Latte in Firefox, please feel free to post below!
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