It is a sad day

[vicaphit]

I just found out that my company has blocked forums.legitreviews.com.

Actually, a lot of different forums I read have been blocked, but not all.

I may be able to log on during my lunch break through a portal we use, but otherwise, I won't be online quite as much... DAMNIT!

[Apoptosis]

Do you know what portal you use? I'm shocked Legit Reviews has been included to be honest. The LR forums have just 5300 members, so to be on their radar is shocking. Alexa has the site rated at 18,504 yesterday, which means LR is the 18,504 most visited site in the world or 10,929 in the US. I guess those portal companies are bored.

If you can find out what portal you have I'll e-mail them and ask why we were blocked. If they are blocking it due to it being a subdomain with forums.x.com in it then we can do a work around for that.

[FZ1]

My company has blocked a lot of sites too. They aren't keen on people posting info from work, regardless of content.

[bubba]

If I wasn't the "gate keeper" (so to speak) it would be blocked here as well. Its the way some webtracking programs are setup. I'd have to dig, but I think forums (in general, not just LR) fall into social networking.

And if its a custom block and they have it set right, if "forum" shows up in a URL it will get redirected to the block page.

The program we use here also has a comunal pool of sorts. What ever custom blocking I do gets uploaded back to the software company, then if enough people block the same URL it then gets put into the master nightly download for everyone.

One update we got blocked GMail, I had to go in and unblock it.

I have also been adding more custum blocks in here lately as well. As we have slowed down, more are screwing off on the net. Manager for a group comes to me and says "block x,y, and z"

[Dragon_Cooler]

I have one word for you... Proxy

[bubba]

If they are good they already have the proxy sites blocked, if it isn't blocked it will be tracked, if its tracked you're just delaying getting yelled at at best. Worse case they bring you a box for your stuff. Economy the way it is, not worth getting canned to catch up on the gossip during the day.

You could always get a smart phone, but then some places (depending on the security level) restrict usage of those too.

[Illuminati]

Ya, even if you setup your own personal proxy, they can detect the traffic going out on a non-standard port number.

[vicaphit]

They monitor our usage, and will sometimes print out a sheet with our most-used websites. LR was pretty high on that list considering that the programs I use for my actual job are browser based as well.

The LR site is not blocked, but the forums are due to them being "chat". Other forums were as well, but not all.

I can log in through the portal I use, and that won't cause an issue as long as I only do it on my breaks (or on the weekends when it's slow). I am just pissed off because they will eventually block everything.

They even blocked google images, and that was my favorite place to get pictures to photoshop while bored.

[bmaverick]

My dad once blocked this site by accident using the OpenDNS. There is a check box to block chat, forums, IM, and others. When he tried getting to this site he was blocked out. I had to laugh at him.

[shamrok3]

Seems like an interesting conundrum, although I do completely side with the employer in terms of "You should be working, not goofing off on some website." In the end you are paid to work, not to post on LR. I can sympathise however, as at school there is an actual Hardware filter on all of the internet traffic. Many a student will stop research in a rage over a mindlessly censored site, screaming "DAMN YOU BLUE REEF! DAMN YOU!" Or at least in their minds. All around the school are unused LAN ports, and the use of Laptops is encouraged, but even if you plug into their ports, you still can't access the internet. Possibly if you installed all of their stupid software (Novell etc.) it would work, but who would pay to get internet when you can use the desktop? Obviously, no localised wireless either. Which is a shame because the desktops which, inevitably, must be used in order to research, are mostly running single core Celerons with about 1.2GHz of power and 256Mb RAM, I'm seriously surprised that they can run PS CS3. Anyway, enough of a rant.

[vicaphit]

I completely understand that an employer would want the employees to be working while on the clock, however, I am in customer service. We receive calls from people ordering parts. We basically have to wait for business to come in, and there is nothing to do unless the calls are coming in.

We are allowed to surf the internet during down time, with the exception of games and videos. It just annoys me that they end up blocking every website that I use.

[shamrok3]

Mmk. Fair. If the only restriction is games and videos, why are they blocking everything? (Seems like a good point to follow in a argument *ahem* debate)