8.2. Safe Browsing

Using the Safe browsing section, the administrator can turn on additional safe browsing settings for the HTTP and HTTPS protocol (HTTPS inspection needs to be configured for the latter). The following settings are available:

  • Block advertising (AdBlock). When visiting an otherwise safe website, the user can be exposed to undesirable images placed, for example, on the side of the webpage. UserGate solves this by working as a "banner blocker".

  • The Inject Script feature enables you to insert the desired code into all web pages viewed by users. The script will be inserted before the </head> tag.

  • Forced activation of the safe search feature for Google, Yandex, Yahoo, Bing, Rambler, and Ask search engines as well as the YouTube portal. This feature allows you to delegate unwanted content blocking to the search engines, which can be highly effective, for example, at filtering responses to image or video content requests.

  • User search query logging.

  • Social network app blocking. Social networks play an ever-increasing role in our everyday lives, but many of them offer gaming apps the use of which is unwanted in most corporate settings. UserGate can block apps without affecting the normal social networking functionality.

You can use the following as conditions for a rule:

  • Traffic source.

  • Users and groups.

  • Time.

Note

The rules are applied top to bottom in their listing order. Only the first rule in which all conditions are matched is applied. This means that more specific rules must be placed higher in the list than more general ones. To change the order in which the rules will be applied, use the Up/Down and Top/Bottom buttons or drag and drop the rules with the mouse.

Note

The Negate checkbox changes the condition to the opposite, which corresponds to a Boolean NOT (negation).

Note

If there are no rules created, the additional safe browsing features are not applied.

To create a safe browsing rule, go to the Security policies --> Safe browsing section, click Add, and provide the desired settings.

Name

Description

Enabled

Enables or disables the rule.

Name

The name of the rule.

Description

A description of the rule.

Enable logging

If this is enabled, instances of the rule being triggered will be recorded in the corresponding statistics log.

AdBlock

Activates ad blocking. By clicking Exceptions, the administrator can select a URL list of websites where ad blocking is not needed.

Injector

Enables you to insert the desired code into all web pages. To edit the injected code, click Injector code.

Safe search

Force-activates the safe search feature.

Search history

Turns on user search query logging.

Block social network apps

Blocks apps in popular social networks.

Source

The zone, IP address lists, GeoIP address lists, or URL lists of the traffic source.

The URL list must include only domain names. Every 5 minutes UserGate resolves domain names into IP addresses and stores the result in the internal cache for the DNS record's time-to-live (TTL). When the TTL expires, UserGate automatically updates the IP address value.

Important! There is a limit on the number of GeoIPs that can be specified: the number cannot exceed 15.

Important! Traffic processing performed with the following statements:

  • applying logic OR if several IP lists and/or domain lists are specified;

  • applying logic AND if several GeoIP and lists of IPs and/or domains are specified.

Users

The list of users and user groups to which this rule is applied. The Any, Unknown, and Known user types can be used. To apply rules to specific users or Known users, user identification needs to be configured. For more details on user identification, see the chapter Users and Devices.

Time

The time when this rule will be active. The administrator can add the required time period in the Time sets section.

Usage

The rule triggering statistics: the total number of triggers, the time of the first and last triggers.

To reset statistics, select rules in the list and click Reset hit counts.

History

The time when the rule was created and last modified, as well as the event log entries related to this rule: adding, updating the rule, changing the position of the rule in the list, etc.