How to determine what censorware is installed on your machine

You can usually tell what type of blocking software is installed on your machine because the name of the product appears when you encounter a "blocked site" message -- SurfWatch says "Blocked by SurfWatch", BESS says, "I'm sorry, BESS can't go there", etc. Some products hide themselves better than others, though. This page lists some of the ways you can tell what censorware is installed on your machine.

Client-side blocking software
CYBERsitter 97
Cyber Patrol
SurfWatch
Net Nanny
X-Stop
Server-level blocking software
BESS
I-Gear
SmartFilter
WebSENSE
SurfWatch Proxy
Cyber Patrol Proxy

CYBERsitter 97

Cyber Patrol

If you know your Internet access is blocked by Cyber Patrol, but you can't find any of these files on your machine, try looking under Cyber Patrol Proxy.

SurfWatch

If you know your Internet access is blocked by SurfWatch, but you can't find any of these files on your machine, try looking under
SurfWatch Proxy.

Net Nanny

No information about Net Nanny yet.


A note about proxy servers

BESS, I-Gear, WebSENSE, Cyber Patrol Proxy, and SurfWatch Proxy are all proxy servers, which means they are installed on another machine on the network. It may not always be possible to determine what product is being used. Usually the only information that you have, is the message displayed when a page is blocked -- but that message can be changed by the proxy server administrator so that it no longer mentions the name of the product, and you have no way of telling what product is being used. If you're trying to find out the name of the product being used by your school for research purposes, this may not always be possible.

If you just want to find out how to get around the blocking, though, then it doesn't matter what kind of proxy server is being used, since the method for getting around all proxy servers is the same, and you can read it here. In that case, all you need to know is whether your computer is configured to use a proxy server at all -- to do this, read how to determine the proxy settings on your computer.

BESS, the Internet Retriever

I-Gear

SmartFilter

WebSENSE

Cyber Patrol Proxy

SurfWatch Proxy