How to Block Pornography

Preventing the viewing of pornographic web pages can be done by blocking access to known pornographic URLs. There are a number of filtering products on the internet designed to restrict access to pornographic web sites. Some popular parental-control filtering products include Net Nanny, Cyber Patrol, Cyber Snoop, McAfee Internet Guard Dog, and Norton Internet Security.

Completely preventing all pornography is a difficult task in today's Internet. Even stopping pornographic email is not completely possible, but there are some things you can do that will help. If you are using Outlook, for instance, you can use the Rules Wizard (from the Tools menu) to delete any message containing certain words in the body or subject. You can also use the Junk Email option (on the Actions menu) to add any sender to a junk email category.

For the most part, preventing pornography popups is done in much the same way as preventing other types of popups: removing suspect programs using the Add/Remove Programs applet in the Control Panel, removing spyware and adware programs or cookies, tightening web browser security settings, removing suspect and damaged ActiveX Controls, removing any pornographic related internet shortcuts (favorites or bookmarks), keeping Windows up to date, installing a firewall, and keeping your anti-virus program up to date. In addition to these, I would also recommend an anti-trojan program such as the TDS-3 Trojan Defence System. Each of these programs will cover the other to provide a pretty formidable defense against any kind of popup, pornography or not. But, now and then you may need to edit your registry to prevent some of these programs from reinstalling themselves, as well as turning off System Restore on WinME/2000/XP systems and then creating a new restore point once everything is cleaned up. The risky part of all this is that on occasion, your system may become unstable after removing spyware programs because of a corrupted registry. You may need to run a registry cleaner or run another utility such as Win Doctor from Norton System Works. You also may not be able to access the internet if your winsock get corrupted. At times, it may be better to call a qualified technician to cleanup your computer. One more thing you need to do is to reevaluate your internet surfing habits. Use discipline when surfing the internet, too much random surfing on unknown sites can be risky, don’t click on the popups, and if you do – don’t buy or download their products, and don’t click on the unsubscribe links in emails. The rest of this article will just delve in a bit more on what we have already discussed.

So far we mentioned, spyware removal programs, a firewall, an anti-virus program, and maybe an anti-trojan program. The cost of safe internet surfing keeps going up and up, so what is next? Well, some of these programs need to be constantly running in the background to provide the protection they are designed for, and that will cost you some of your system’s resources, or speed. Some of you may need a memory upgrade to absorb all these added processes.

Spyware Removers such as Ad-aware or Spybot search out spyware and adware programs or cookies that might have gotten installed on your computer without your knowledge when you installed other software products. Some spyware programs can infect your computer during normal web surfing. While, Spybot and Adaware are scanners for removing spyware already on your computer, you can also help prevent “new” spyware from ever infecting your computer with a passive immunization program such as Spyware Blaster. Just be aware that there is a distinct difference between spyware protection and the protection from an anti-virus program, as anti-virus programs only search out viruses and worms. Anti-virus programs do not normally recognize spyware and adware components as viruses, therefore most anti-virus programs will just bypass them. Some however, are dropped by trojans, which may be picked up by your anti-virus program, but trojans are much more difficult to detect than viruses and may need a program specifically designed for trojan detection and removal.

Spyware removal programs remove any software from your computer that might be generating ads. They are not the same as Spam filters or Pop-up Filters, which only restrict the unwanted material without removing any programs on your computer, which might be generating the material.

Spyware removing programs need to be updated regularly since new forms of adware & spyware are constantly being developed. It is recommended that you run these programs after downloading any files, or at least once per week. Anti-virus programs also need to be updated regularly for the same reason.

A firewall program is another type of software product you can install to help prevent many forms of hacking. Some web sites attempt to install ActiveX programs on your computer, or perform other malicious acts. A properly configured firewall should theoretically block ALL access to your computer from outsiders. If you already have spyware installed on your computer, it might automatically attempt to connect to the spyware's parent company. A firewall will also prevent this type behavior as well, just don’t depend on the Windows XP built-in Internet Connection Firewall to do this, it won’t help with the outgoing traffic. Some firewall programs might also protect you against Spam Mail. These programs should be kept active any time you are online so they will alert you if anything or anyone is trying to access your computer through the background.