Comments on: Review: K9 Web Protection

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 20 May 2010 00:45:50 +0000

Hi James,

Welcome to Family WebWatch!

Glad to hear you’re giving K9 a try. I’m sorry to say that I don’t have the information you’re looking for. It has been a while since I’ve used that program, but if memory serves I believe once settings have been changed, they need to be saved, right? If so, could it be that they weren’t saved originally?

By: james taasin

james taasin — Wed, 19 May 2010 06:08:47 +0000

i am testing the k9 web protection and hoping to recommend it in our community households! so i installed it to some home owners in our community. 2 of them complained. upon checking the settings i found out that the settings i choose (custom – P2P and social networking unchecked) was changed to the default settings!
the admin password was only known to me, so there is no way they had changed it.

please give me some info about how to correct this problem.
This might help too!
1. before they noticed the problem he updated his anti-virus (AVG)
2. the other person’s anti-virus expired (NOD-32)

By: Ken

Ken — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 22:56:45 +0000

Kevin,
Thanks for visiting Family WebWatch.

It has been a while since I’ve used K9, but I don’t recall exactly what it logged when it came to admin activities. I recommend posting your question to their support forum. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:41:50 +0000

Ken, thanks for putting up this article for all the parents out there. I do have a question is there a way to make K9 log all the admin activities: like admin login/logout, change email address etc. currently it only records certain activities. I would appreciate it if you can forward my question to BlueCoat if you don’t know the answer. thx. Kev.

By: Ken

Ken — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:10:00 +0000

@Rachana
Welcome to Family WebWatch.

I’m sorry to say that I don’t know how to address the trouble you’re having other than contacting the folks at BlueCoat, the maker of K9. Curious though, if you configure K9 to allow everything, do you still get the error message?

By: Rachana

Rachana — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 10:05:21 +0000

Hey,

I have recently downloaded K9 and started using it. However, i am having a bit of trouble. I have NOT blocked the E-Mail category, but have inserted websites such as “hotmail.com” and “http://mail.google.com” in the always block category.

The problem is, we have a family email and site on Google Apps. And even though, i have included the start page of that site and the inbox page in the “Always Allow” category, I am unable to access it.

I get a “Internet Explorer cannot display the page” on my IE, and get an Error Code 107 on my Google Chrome.

Can you please help

Thank You

By: Preacherdog

Preacherdog — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:26:00 +0000

I have tried numerous web filtering programs and services and I must say that K9 is the best I’ve ever used. It is fast, tweakble and highly effective. And the best thing about it is the fact that it is FREE, which leaves very little room for criticism. THANK YOU K9 FOR THIS GREAT SERVICE, WHICH KEEPS MY WHOLE FAMILY FROM BEING SOILED BY ALL THE MORAL REFUSE IN EXISTENCE ON THE WEB.

By: John

John — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:14:51 +0000

The fact that k9 is blocking sites like amazon suggests a problem given the process above. Another problem is an employertrusting the categories k9 gives as policy backing guidelines. I have seen urban dictionary dictionary get an “adult mature” category flag as well as non pornographic sites getting “pornographic” flags This can create very serious issues per labor laws.

By: Ken

Ken — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:04:27 +0000

@Anonymous but not Given
Welcome to Family WebWatch and thank you for taking the time to share your viewpoint.

I respectfully disagree with your point about K9 being unconstitutional. K9 does not prevent anyone from expressing themselves. It does, however, enable parents to filter what they deem to be inappropriate material from their child(ren). That’s a big difference.

You mention not being able to access your school work or to view certain parts of the Web. I fully understand your frustration, but would it not be appropriate for you to speak to your parents and ask them to consider reconfiguring K9 so that you can access information that is appropriate for you?

In fact, since you are having trouble accessing many other non-offensive sites (like Amazon), this tells me that the administrator who controls access to your K9 configuration should take another look at the way things are set up. It sounds like it’s being far too restrictive.

By: Anonymous but not Given

Anonymous but not Given — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:50:35 +0000

I think that this is unconstitutional as stated by the First Amendment. It does not allow people to express themselves. What most annoys me is that I can’t even access my own school files like I could and now I have to be at school in order to access them. Talk about lack in productivity. Also, if the ‘unrated’ sites say that it is not reccommended to block them, then why is it blocked in the first place???

I also hate how I cannot access sites like Amazon.com, my own local newspaper, and many sites that are not in the slightest offensive. If you are a parent with older teenagers and use this site, you are thin-skinned and babyish. Unless you know for a fact that your kids look at porn, don’t use this. Also, everytime I access Google Images, the listing for every picture is ‘Pornography’, and doesn’t really sort out what is or isn’t. In fact, in one month the program said it had over 300,000 pornography hits on Google Images. Tell me how that works.

What do you have to say to this. It’s ridiculous in many aspects.