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Sonicwall SOHO Internet Security Appliance
Page 3
Author: Tim Higgins Review Date: 9/29/2000
Filtering
that nasty web stuff!
The SOHO has quite an array of Content filtering features.
Here's the list:
You can individually choose to block ActiveX, Java applets, Cookies,
or access to WAN based Proxy servers
You can have the filtering active only during a certain time of the
day (just one range) and certain days of the week (one range), or all
the time
You can set a time limit for each web browsing session. (When the
timeout is reached, the user gets sent to the Consent page (see below)
in order to restart the session.)
You can enter up to 256 "Trusted" and 256 "Forbidden"
domains
You can display a message (up to 255 characters long) on the user's
web browser if they try to access a filtered web site.
You can enter a list of keywords to filter. If the keyword
is contained in a URL, access to the site will be blocked.
If the above features aren't enough you can subscribe to
CyberPatrol's
CyberNOT content filter list. The SOHO comes with a 30 day trial
subscription, but extending that subscription will cost you $175 for a
year's subscription.. ouch! If you do subscribe, you can set the
SOHO to update the list weekly, at a date and time that you can select.
If the update should fail for some reason, you can select whether to block
or enable all site access.
To round out its filtering features, the SOHO has a Consent
feature that allows a user to choose whether they want filtered or unfiltered
web access. This feature requires that you create a web page with
links back to specific URLs in the SOHO for the filtering selection, and
some optional pages for confirming your selection.
Hint: The
URLs for this feature must be fully qualified and not contain "http://".
Example: "www.practicallynetworked.com/consent.htm"
You also can set IP addresses that will always be filtered.
These users will get sent to another web page that you must create that
contains a link back to a SOHO URL that enables the filtered session.
Beating
the Virus rap...
I've always felt that a great feature for router/gateway
products would be automatic Virus protection. After all, the threat
to your network from viruses, trojans and other such nasties is at least
as great as the "open port" danger that everyone seems to focus
on. McAfee
Clinic's VirusScan on-line product has taken a big step toward
providing this automatic protection, and SonicWall has taken this automatic
protection to the next level:
First the SOHO will automatically install Anti-Virus protection on
every PC on your network.
Second, the SOHO automatically updates the software as soon as a
new DAT file or engine is available instead of the scheduled once per
week update provided by McAfee's Clinic.
Finally, if the software has been deactivated or uninstalled on a
LAN Client, the SOHO will reactivate and/or reinstall it on the PC.
The catch for all this magic is...you guessed it... it ain't
free. You need to purchase a subscription for each system on your
LAN that you want to be protected. Subscriptions cost $30/user/year,
the same as a McAfee Clinic subscription would cost you. This wonderfulness
is also only available for Windows based machines. MacOS, Linux,
and others will have to continue to protect themselves the old-fashioned
way.
Had enough? Hope not, since we're only half way through!
72.2% | 
27.8% | out of 36 reviews 
