Disabling Internet Usage

[Anjie]

Hey all, hopefully this is a simple question. Does anyone know of a way to disable internet browsing altogether while still allowing E-mail access? We have a few computers at our office that do not require Internet usage but they need to be able to check E-mails and such. We are using Windows XP. Is there an option to disable Internet Explorer without loosing E-mail access?

[EzyStvy]

If the users aren't very skilled, you can rename iexplorer.exe to disable it.

[giorgos]

Hey all, hopefully this is a simple question. Does anyone know of a way to disable internet browsing altogether while still allowing E-mail access? We have a few computers at our office that do not require Internet usage but they need to be able to check E-mails and such. We are using Windows XP. Is there an option to disable Internet Explorer without loosing E-mail access?

Do they access their e-mail through a web browser or an e-mail client ? How are these computers connected to the internet (are they connected to a router ? ) ? Do they have static IP addresses in your network or they use DHCP ? You can block access to all web addresses, but your companies web mail through a software firewall on a per computer basis or even through windows xp hosts file. If you answer the previous questions I could possibly recommend a more centralized solution.

[Anjie]

Sorry, E-mail is retrieved through a POP3 address via Microsofts Outlook XP. The internet is a wireless adapter connected to a Linksys Router.

[giorgos]

Sorry, E-mail is retrieved through a POP3 address via Microsofts Outlook XP. The internet is a wireless adapter connected to a Linksys Router.

If your router allows it(it includes a firewall), you can set a rule to allow only outgoing access for every IP address of these PCs only to TCP port 110 (standard pop3 port) and block every other communication (before you do this make sure that your local server runs on this port). If your router doesn't allow this, you can do it on a per PC basis using a local software firewall, using numerous free blocking software or using IPsec policy. A very nice article describing how to do the last is :
http://www.petri.co.il/block_web_browsing_with_ipsec.htm
(http://www.petri.co.il/block_web_browsing_with_ipsec.htm)
If you want to block specific sites you can use windows hosts file (C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc) and create entries like :
e.g. block facebook
127.0.0.1 facebook.com

Hope something from the above helped.

[Anjie]

Thanks Giorgos, I will check this all out. I appreciate you help and PC Mech for being here. Love this site guys.