Using the IE Content Advisor to block all Internet access
Posted By Chris Stinson in Security, Viruses, Trojans,Windows on March 12, 2009
This is an old trick that was documented on the Microsoft website for Windows 95 – Windows 2000 but seems to have disappeared since. Here’s a basic retelling of the procedure to block all Internet access and allow only approved sites using the FREE content advisor found in Internet Explorer.
1. Copy the following text into Notepad and save it as “noaccess.rat” in the Windows\system32\ directory (or another directory of your choice). Be sure that the file extension is .rat and not .txt. You can download a zip file containing noaccess.rat here.
(rating-system “http://www.microsoft.com”)
(rating-service “http://www.microsoft.com”)
(name “Noaccess”)
(description “This file will block all sites.”)
(category
(transmit-as “m”)
(name “Yes”)
(label
(name “Level 0: No Setting”)
(description “No Setting”)
(value 0))
(label
(name “Level 1: No Setting”)
(description “No Setting”)
(value 1))))
2. In the “Control Panel” double-click on “Internet Options” and click on the “Content” tab. If in Internet Explorer, click on “Tools” and “Internet Options” and click on the “Content” tab.
3. Click “Enable.”
4. Inside the “General” tab click on “Rating System.”
5. Remove all entries and click “Add.” Add “noaccess.rat” from the Windows\system32\ directory.
6. Click on the “Approved Sites” tab and add all the websites you wish to allow access to.
UPDATE (Dec 14 2009): I have added the noaccess.rat and noaccess.txt files to a zip file that can be downloaded here.
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11 Comments
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An error:
When adding the .RAT file, IE7.0 says –
“A quoted string was expected near line 2″
Pls help me….
Hello,
I have corrected the previous problem.
One question -
Is there any way to not to show the “Content Blocked” dialog-box ?
I want it to be silent.
I don’t believe there is a silent way with the Content Advisor.
You can always modify the HOSTS file in Windows to block certain websites. Just have an entry for each website you wish to block and have 127.0.0.1 as the IP…that way people will assume the site is down (will show up as 404 – Not Found).
Is this for a corporate network? Or one where people logon through a domain controller?
I’m getting the same error on line 2 during adding the noaccess.txt in IE 7. Can you please help, thanks.
((PICS-version 1.0)
(rating-system “http://www.microsoft.com”)
(rating-service “http://www.microsoft.com”)
(name “Noaccess”)
(description “This file will block all sites.”)
(category
(transmit-as “m”)
(name “Yes”)
(label
(name “Level 0: No Setting”)
(description “No Setting.”)
(value 0) )
(label
(name “Level 1: No Setting”)
(description “No Setting.”)
(value 1) ) ) )
If you are still getting errors as listed above, and you have copy and pasted the text, you may want to try replacing the double quotes as this fixed the errors for me. Though I cannot get the file to show up in the add menu when it is in my Windows/System32 folder on Windows Vista.
Hi, I have added the noaccess.rat file to a zip file. You can download it and place it in your Windows\System32 directory. I have added the noaccess.txt file for ease of editing.
http://www.iishacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/noaccessrat.zip
Is there a content advisor for Google Chrome?
Sorry, not that I have seen yet.
Will this work on Windows 7 machines running IE8 and IE9? I know that this is an older string, but need to deny some of my specific workstations from accessing all but a couple of sites.
Thank you.
Yes. I have it working on a number of Windows 7 machines with IE9.