Focus is a Mac app that blocks distracting sites that shows you an inspirations quote when you try to visit a site you shouldn't. Read More and also features a built-in Pomodoro timer. Pomodoro Time: is similar to Pomodoro One, but includes a to-do list.
In our company we have around 100 workstations with Internet access, and the day-to-day situation is getting worse and worse from the perspective of using Internet access for the purpose of doing private jobs, and wasting time on social sites. Open hearted as I am I don't like blocking sites like Facebook, YouTube, and other similar sites but day by day my colleagues do not finish their tasks and any time I look at their monitors they are running Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, chat and things like that. On the other hand I would like to block YouTube when we have a very low Internet access speed.
Here are my questions:. Do other companies block social sites?.
Do I need a dedicated device for that, like a hardware firewall or a super expensive router? Or can I do that with my existing FreeBSD 6.1 self-made router with two LAN cards and configured NAT to act like a router? I was trying to do that using and routerfirewall but without success. My code looks like: ipfw add 25 deny tcp from 192.168.0.0/20 to www.facebook.com ipfw add 25 deny udp from 192.168.0.0/20 to www.facebook. Ipfw add 25 deny tcp from 192.168.0.0/20 to www.dernek.
Ipfw add 25 deny udp from 192.168.0.0/20 to www.dernek. Ipfw add 25 deny tcp from 192.168.0.0/20 to www.youtube. Ipfw add 25 deny udp from 192.168.0.0/20 to www.youtube.com What can I do to fix this problem? Do other companies blocking social sites? Yes, but that doesn't mean it is a good idea. The book has an interesting discussion and links to several studies that basically suggests that if you block minor personal usage, it can actually cost you in productivity.
If people think their work place is friendly and home-like, they are more likely to work from home beyond their 40 hours. If one individual is causing problems it may be better to work with the individual, then to use a technology solution to simply kill break things. Technology is not a replacement for a manager actually doing their job.
Most filters are easily bypassed, you really should try and avoid getting into an arms race with your coworkers. At some point you will just make your firewall so hostile they won't be able to get actual work done, and you still will probably have not blocked all the possible ways around the firewall. Do I need dedicated device for that like hardware firewall, super expensive router Or I can do that whit my existing FreeBSD 6.1 self made router with two lan cards and configured nat to act like router. You can install Squid+Squidguard and force all traffic through the proxy. You can setup ACLs to block sites you don't like. I suggest you setup squid as a proxy, with no ACLs to block anything, and just watch the logs.
Force everyone through the proxy (with notice). Then setup something like SARG to build reports. If someone is really having a problem having a good report will give the employee's supervisor the evidence the need to start addressing the problem.
+1 Seems like most recent research supports this as well, and many even quite large companies are going all-out enabling and encouraging full privatework-related social networking at work. As you said, the more involved one is, the more work will occupy one's mind - for good and bad (usually company-good, personal-life-bad;) If someone is just wasting time surfing and not really getting things done, they'd probably waste time some other way if those sites are blocked.
It's a people problem, not a technical problem imo – May 20 '10 at 12:27. You know how the RIAA and MPAA publish these insane numbers on how much money piracy is costing them, based on the idiotic assumption that every unit of pirated content would be purchased if piracy were impossible? You're doing the same thing by assuming that if 'wasting' time on social media were impossible, that time would be spent doing productive work. But unless these are data entry clerks you're talking about, we're probably talking about people with some kind of creative / knowledge-worker aspect to their job, which means that their productivity is a complex thing that doesn't look the same as that of a widget twister on an assembly line.
Their use of social media may easily be a key component of their productivity, and attacking it may be attacking what enables them to make you money. And that's even before we get into the morale impact of treating employees like prisoners on a chain gang. Just sayin', dude.
We only block sites if browsing is interfering with productivity, and we accept the views of local management on the issue (even when we suspect they are exaggerating). We block sites using a proxy server; usually SQUID, which should run fine on your firewall. We put a rule on the firewall blocking outbound port 80 (and sometimes 443) from all hosts except from servers and the proxy server.
Then we use a group policy to configure the proxy in users' Internet Explorer. Some managers ask us for usage stats. I work at a college, and we block sites using Websense. Good (not perfect!) but expensive.
OpenDNS is cheaper and also pretty good. At the end of the day, though, my opinion is that there are very few technological solutions to behavioural problems. If your business doesn't want people visiting social networking sites then it needs to make it clear that this is against internet use policy otherwise it becomes a game for some people. By all means use tools to help enforce that policy if needed, but don't just block sites with no explanation or communication.
I also agree with the comment about whether or not the work is being done. If people are meeting their goals then you might well ask where the harm is in letting them loose on the Internet a little as well. @Jim - In your opinion the sites shouldn't be blocked, but what about the opinion of the person responsible for configuring it? A default install of Websense doesn't block anything except obvious stuff like pr0n, and if sites are mis-categorised by websense then your local websense admin can re-classify them. For example, working in a college, I've re-classified websense's educational category as business use instead of 'producitivy loss' as per their default. Neither category was actually blocked, this was just to make reports clearer to our PHBs – Jun 3 '09 at 18:56. I agree that it's an HR / management policy, IT can only put less than perfect technology in place to implement.
If there's a problem it should be evident in the performance of the offender. However, when required to have proof for the purposes of disciplinary action then Internet usage logs are vital to the organization's case. For this the organization must employ a logging / reporting mechanism. Use of this should be communicated to employees and the usage policies should be clearly documented in the employee handbook. We also perform usage monitorying use WebSense. Categories strictly forbidden by our policy are straight-up blocked.
Others that are more loosely regulated are allowed by clicking through button that equates to the employee saying 'I understand this filter and am proceeding because of business reasons'. The tool you use is going to depend a lot on the type of policy you have and the size of your organization. I also totally agree that restricting social sites is becoming more and more of an undesirable thing, especially for the upcoming generations.
We use a combination of OpenDNS but also run an IPCop box in front of the network. This allows us to restrict sites such as MySpace, FaceBook, YouTube, etc EXCEPT for the lunch hour (12:00pm - 1:00pm). This allows employees to check their myspace, facebook, etc during their lunch hour but keeps them 'focused' on company time. Periodically we look at the IPCop log files and determine if more sites need to be blocked. If you implement an IPCop solution you'll quickly discover that after about a week all of the goofing off 'magically' stops. You'll also find that you only have to block a handfull of sites to increase employee productivity a huge amount. Good luck PS - Another great product we've used in the past is SecuredIM which allows you to monitor inter-company chat and also take periodic screenshots of a user's desktop if you wish.
Take a snapshot of Joe's desktop every 10 minutes). Shouldn't an employee work as hard as they can (within reason) for the money they earn, regardless of the amount? I can tell you I personally know who the 'workers vs slackers' are in my organization.
The biggest problem with 'slackers' is that they tend to bring down others until you have a least common denominator scenario. A more common thing I see is the worker who is paid $25/hr and is pissed because the front desk girl (who is paid $10/hr) is slacking off. This is an apples-oranges comparison but employees don't always see it. Pretty soon everyone wants to slack off equally. – May 24 '10 at 18:06.
Most people wrongly assume the aim of web filtering is single-minded - it is not 'just' about productivity - though I have seen numerous real world examples where productivity increases where output increases hugely when gentle controls are applied. I work for SmoothWall, a web filtering vendor - so whilst I might have a spot of bias, I am also well experienced!
Websense are even advertising 'say yes' these days - and we (SmoothWall) agree. You need to be lenient. Using soft-block (just a reminder this is 'non policy' or time bands are 2 ways of slackening things off. As I was saying. Not just productivity - I have seen HR issues arising from misuse of social networking, from misuse of adult websites, and from lack of evidence when these happen. Worth pointing out that not everyone behaves like we expect them to - not everyone has 'sysadmin/techie mindset' and will work harder because you give them facerbook.
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Many will take a mile given an inch - human nature i am afraid. Short Answer: Yes there are companies out there blocking web access (social or other sites) Long Answer: From employer point of view: Time used at work, not doing any work, is wasted. From employee point of view: My work is done, while waiting for more to come, I'll go (to that website) - Depends on the kind of work you do, there can be a gap from when your work is done to when you receive more work to do. I am one of the employee that got my web access shot down when our company decided to trial WebSense. And the few things I learn from being locked down by websense:.
I learn a lot on open proxy, tunneling, and information about circumventing web blocks in general. Big amount of unrest among the staff with the web access lock down - Doesn't affect higher-ups because their access is not restricted Restricting people from accessing social websites should be part of the company business practice and part of the company work ethic, there should be little or no need for such enforcement through the use of the technology (Reference: David Pashley's comment above). Enforcement on personal level will be beneficial for both the company and the staff member in the long run.
The staff member will be more responsible with their work and their access to social sites, and the company will be beneficial from more responsible staff member. Personal Monitoring Cost: Practically $0. Manager/team leader to spend more time to manage and monitor their team. Benefit: Staff have less time to visit social sites (to do more work), 'might' improve their sense of responsibility in the long run. Web Blocking Software Cost: Depends on the software, might be free, might be $$$$. Also, time spent to fine-tuning the software. Benefit: Save the company time from staff accessing social sites, save the company bandwidth in general.
The best tool for this is Internet Usage Policy with open statistics (but management will object to this, as, you know - they are also people). Block all connections to the outside from user lan, no port exceptions!. Get some proxy server, for example - Squid and add filter like Squidguard. Now there are two ways: configure user to use proxy (takes some time) or enable transparent proxy (might be problems with SSL connections, but faster). Look for the user, who is happy and uninstall TOR from his PC, remove usb, floppy, cdrom, etc, so he cannot use portable version (or better - fire him with a lot of publicity in the company).