I have installed squid on my windows based network through ICS and wanted to find out how I can use Squid to filter out web contents. Can the filter include selective key phrases that I can choose and key into the squid server? How effective is the filter service to help filter out children content in a home based internet?
Squid is a UNIX-based proxy server that caches or stores internet content much nearer to a requestor than the content’s original point of origin. It was originally a product from the Harvest Project. The Harvest Project is an ARPA-funded open-source storage and information gathering tool. They used the code name “Squid” to distinguish the project when they initially started the development in the new direction.
Squid supports storing of different kinds of web objects like those accessed via FTP and HTTP. Caching or storing frequently requested media files, web pages, and other content decreases bandwidth congestion and quickens response time. A Squid proxy server is typically installed on a separate server different from the web server which holds the original files.
It works by monitoring object use across the internet. It will first serve as an intermediary, which will just pass the request of the client to the server and then saving a copy of the requested object. If numerous clients or the same client requests the same object before it expires from the Squid’s cache, it can then right away provide it saving bandwidth and speeding up the download.
