Comodo Internet Security lets you block certain websites or groups of websites from different users. Two steps are required to accomplish this:
- Add websites to website categories
- Create Firewall Rules to allow or block website categories for selected users
Define web categories
1. On the CIS homepage screen, click ‘Settings.
2. Click on ‘Website Filtering > ‘Categories.
3. Click on ‘Add’ > “Add Category”:
4. Click ‘OK’ to enter a category name. The categories tab will display the new category.
5. Select the category you wish to add > Click “Add” from the top options > Choose “Add Website” from the drop-down menu. The dialog “Add Website” will open.
6. Enter the URL or text string that you want to add to this category. For more information, see the following:
- To filter a particular domain, enter a FQDN.
- To include sub-domains of your website, add an asterisk to the URL. For example, *.friskywenches.com will cover friskywenches.com, pictures.friskywenches.com, videos.friskywenches.com and so on. The wildcard character is the asterisk.
- To cover all URLs starting with a particular string, add an asterisk to a keyword. For example, “pizza*” will cover ‘pizzahut.com’, pizzacorner.com, and so on
- To cover all websites that contain the string, add asterisks after and before the keyword. For example, “*pizza*” will cover hotpizzanow.com, spicypizzadishes.net and so on
7. You can add more websites to this category by repeating the process.
8. Continue the process until you have added more categories to your website.
9. To save your settings, click ‘OK’ on the ‘Advanced Settings” interface
Make rules to allow or block websites from specific users
1. On the CIS homepage, click ‘Settings.
2. Click “Website Filtering” on the left.
3. Ensure that you have selected the “Enable Website Filtering” checkbox.
4. Click on the tab ‘Rules’ and select ‘Add’ from all the options. The dialog for ‘Website Filtering Rules’ will open.
5. In the dialog ‘Website Filtering Rule,’ enter a name to describe your new filter.
6. Choose the categories to be added to your filter:
- Click “Add” under the Categories.
The “categories” window displays a list of pre-defined Comodo categories as well as any user-created categories. You cannot modify Comodo categories.
- Safe Websites – Websites considered safe by the global whitelist
- Phishing Websites – Fake copies popular shopping, banking and social media sites that are designed to steal customer data
- Malware Websites This URL will direct you to a malware download. Malware can damage your computer or steal sensitive information.
- Exclusions Websites that you trust and allow connections for the current session as well as future sessions.
- PUA Websites – Sites that host ‘Potentially Unwanted Applications (PUA). Although not malware, a PuA is software that provides functionality that was not obvious to the user. A browser toolbar that tells you the weather, but also tracks your online activities and serves you ads is one example.
- Malicious Sites-Sites known to contain malicious scripts, malware, or deceptive content. These sites are designed to damage your computer and steal personal information.
- Suspected Sites Sites that have displayed strong evidence of suspicious behavior, but have not yet hosted any content that would warrant them being placed in the Malware’ or Malicious’ category. These sites should be visited with extreme caution.
- Click ‘OK’ to add a category to your rule. You can add more categories by repeating the process.
Website categories provides more information on how to create and modify categories.
7. To whom should the rule be applied, add users or user groups:
- From the menu at the top, click ‘Add’ under the ‘Restrictions’ pane. The dialog ‘Select User/Group’ will open:
- In the box ‘Enter object name to choose’, enter the names of the users to whom the filter should be applied. The format [domain name]/[user/group] or [user/group]@[domain] is acceptable. To locate specific users, you can click ‘Advanced” then ‘Find Now”.
- You can add users or groups to your account, but you must specify the restriction that will be applied to them. You can either allow them to view the website in the category, or you can ask them if it is okay. Modifying the link in the “Restrictions” column will allow you to do this:
- Allow – The user can access the websites listed in the categories.
- Block The user cannot access the websites listed in these categories.
- Ask An alert will appear in the browser when the user attempts to access any website in this category. The user has the option to decide whether or not they want to continue.
- You can use the “Logging” switch to control whether attempts to access a categorized site are logged.
8. To save your new rule, click ‘OK. The new rule will be added under the “Rules” tab.
9. To make the rule take effect, ensure that it is enabled by clicking the toggle switch in the ‘Enable Rule Column’ column.
The switch located under the “Enable Rule” column allows you to disable or enable rules at any moment.