What is content filtering?
Web content filtering is the practice of blocking access to web content that may be deemed offensive, inappropriate, or even dangerous. Families will be well aware of the need to apply internet content filters to material not suitable for young children, but content filtering has its place in the business world, too.
How does content filtering work?
Content filtering works by using hardware or software-based solutions to establish rules about the types of sites that may be visited. Using keywords or other commonalities between sites, content is grouped into categories—such as sports, gambling, adult, streaming, and so on—and those sites in undesirable categories are blocked on the network.
Keeping objectionable content away from children is one of the more obvious use cases for web content filtering. But DNS filtering—a specific type of content filtering that uses the DNS layer to filter based on IP addresses—is increasingly being adopted by businesses as a means of controlling web use and reducing infections. When content is filtered according to sites known to pose a high risk of malware, those sites can be blocked before they have the chance to drop malicious payloads. When known distractions like social media and streaming video sites are blocked, productivity increases.
For more on DNS protection, including more background on what it is and why it matters, visit the Webroot® DNS Protection page.
