Please find some useful
questions and answers about Firefly's
Netintelligence. Should you
have any further enquiries,
please do not hesitate to contact us.
GENERAL
CONTROLLING
INTERNET USAGE
GENERAL
I don't
use Firefly for Internet access, can I still use
Firefly Netintelligence ?
A. Because you don't
use Firefly for Internet access doesn't mean you
should be unprotected ! We have no
objections with you using an alternative ISP for
connectivity and use ourselves for our
Netintelligence.
I have
dialup, not broadband, can I still use Firefly
Netintelligence ?
A. While Firefly
Netintelligence is geared for broadband
connections, there is no reason you cannot use
it on a dialup connection. You may notice
a slight slowdown should a large virus update be
required though.
What kind of
computer can I use Firefly's Netintelligence Home Edition
on?
A. You can use Firefly's Netintelligence Home
Edition on PCs with Windows 2000® or Windows XP®
operating systems installed on them.
Firefly's Netintelligence Home is not designed for use on
other operating systems, such as older versions
of Windows, or the Macintosh® Operating System -
so Firefly's Netintelligence Home can’t be used with an
Apple Mac computer, for example.
Why is the
Anti Virus not included as part of the trial and
how do I get it?
A. We have assumed, rightly or wrongly,
that many people will already have Anti Virus
installed on their home computer. In order for
the Firefly's Netintelligence Home Edition Anti Virus to
work effectively, you will need to uninstall any
other existing Anti Virus product. To ensure
that you gain the maximum benefits from your
trial, simply and easily, we believe that it
makes sense for you not to install our Anti
Virus until you are convinced that you wish to
purchase Firefly's Netintelligence. This removes any
inconvenience on your part in un-installing,
installing and potentially un-installing the
software again. Once you have completed the
purchase of your product, you will be able to
download and install the Anti Virus component
onto your computer(s) direct from the Anti Virus
section of the online Control Centre. Your trial
Firefly's Netintelligence software will work with any Anti
Virus products that you may have currently
installed.
How do I know that all
the components of Firefly's Netintelligence Home Edition
are actively working?
A. When you log into the Firefly's
Netintelligence
Control Centre, the first screen that you see
shows you summary graphs for the six main
components of Firefly's Netintelligence Home – website
visits, messenger/chat usage, blocked sites,
anti virus, computer usage and software usage.
There is a set of graphs for each of your
machines running Firefly's Netintelligence. You can see
the different sets of graphs by clicking on the
computer name tab at the top of the screen. The
presence of the graphs, for each of your
machines running Firefly's Netintelligence, shows that
Firefly's Netintelligence is functioning fully.
In addition, Firefly's Netintelligence Home runs a small
process (a ‘background’ activity) which checks
on the status of your Firefly's Netintelligence software
every minute. If this process detects that
Firefly's Netintelligence Home has suffered a malfunction
for any reason, it will automatically ‘restart’
the software.
How do I add
Firefly's Netintelligence Home Edition to another
computer?
A. You can install Firefly's
Netintelligence Home
Edition on three separate machines which you
own, either at home, in the office or a mobile
machine such as a laptop. (If you were to try to
install on a fourth machine, the client on this
machine would simply be ignored by the
Firefly's Netintelligence central databases.)
To install on another computer, or to re-install
on an existing computer:
1. Log in to your Firefly's Netintelligence Control
Centre.
2. Click on the ‘My Firefly's Netintelligence’ button.
3. Click the ‘Install Firefly's Netintelligence on a new
machine’ icon – further installation details are
now given on the page displayed.
Can anyone
other than myself remove or disable the
Firefly's Netintelligence Home Edition from my computer(s)?
A. Only users
with ‘administrator’ rights for a machine can
remove software. This is why we recommend that
other users of your PC should be given the
‘limited’ type of user account, while you
yourself should have an ‘administrator’ account.
It is possible for a more advanced user to stop
the Firefly's Netintelligence process manually, but the
effect of doing this is only temporary, as
Firefly's Netintelligence will automatically ‘restart’
itself in minutes if this should happen.
Only users with a Control Centre login (i.e.
yourself) can make Firefly's Netintelligence ‘inactive’
(or disabled) for any users of a machine.
I have
installed Firefly's Netintelligence on my PC but I only
have one user appear. Why is this?
A.
Firefly's Netintelligence has
detected that there is only one Windows user set
up to use your computer. In other words, your
family uses your computer simply by turning it
on – individual members do not need to enter
their own unique passwords or select their
unique user profile to use the computer.
In order to benefit from the unparalleled
reporting capabilities of Firefly's
Netintelligence Home
Edition, you will need to create different users
in Windows, one for each person in your family
who uses the computer. This is a very
straightforward procedure, and you should do
this for each computer you want to run
Firefly's Netintelligence on. Once you have done this,
Firefly's Netintelligence will detect the new users, and
will then show them separately in your
Firefly's Netintelligence Control Centre.
Click here
to download the Firefly's Netintelligence Home Edition
User Guide, or refer to your Microsoft Windows
documentation or help system, for instructions
on how to create Windows users.
How quickly
are any changes that I make to my
Firefly's Netintelligence Home Edition enabled?
A. Your Firefly's Netintelligence software
‘communicates’ with our central databases every
minute. So any configuration changes that you
make (e.g. adding a new computer, setting
blocking rules for a particular user) will start
to be effective approximately 2 minutes after
you’ve made them.
Changes that we make to our central databases
(e.g. adding more categorised websites) are made
continuously, and are effective as soon as they
are made – if you have blocked the category of
website which any new addresses belong to, then
you will be immediately protected.
How will I
receive any future upgrades to the
Firefly's Netintelligence Home Edition software?
A. The upgrades will be sent to your
machine(s) automatically, as and when new
releases are available. If an upgrade is
available, a message will appear on your screen
advising you of this fact and asking you to
accept the upgrade. (You should always agree to
accept the upgrade, so that you always have the
latest version of the software.)
What brands of
Instant Messenger software does Firefly's
Netintelligence
report and record?
A. Currently, Firefly's Netintelligence monitors
and records MSN®, Yahoo®, AOL® and ICQ®
messenger software.
How far back
can I see the Firefly's Netintelligence reports for a
particular user?
A. The Firefly's Netintelligence Central Database
holds the last 30 days’ data, on a rolling
basis. This means that no permanent record is
kept centrally. You can of course either save or
print the Firefly's Netintelligence reports, to keep a
lasting record of your own.
In the report screens, you can select to see the
data for a particular user (or for all users) on
any given day, or for the last 7 days. You can
also use the calendar 'date picker' (where
available on detail screens) to look at data for
the previous 30 days.
CONTROLLING INTERNET USAGE
What subjects are
contained within the categories that
Firefly's Netintelligence blocks?
A. Firefly's Netintelligence has sophisticated
filtering categories, which for the Home Edition
have been simplified to the following six:
|
Adult |
Pornographic sites; sites featuring nudity
and/or sexuality; ‘adult’ underwear and
role-playing apparel; games, humour and
literature sites with overtly adult content;
personals/dating/romance; art featuring
nudity or explicit sexuality; sex education |
|
Drugs |
Sites concerned with supply, promotion
and/or advocacy of illegal drugs; including
drug-related paraphernalia, literature, and
equipment; associated alternative lifestyles |
|
Gambling |
Bookmakers and casinos (online and offline);
gambling machines (fruit machines, roulette,
etc.); gambling resource and information
sites |
|
Gaming |
Online games; online gaming groups; gaming
resources; interactive puzzles; role-playing
games; video games; coin-operated games |
|
Hate |
Violence; aggression; racism; weapons
(supply and advocacy/information);
terrorism; political, racial or religious
intolerance, bigotry or hate; incitement to
law-breaking, including civil disobedience;
suicide assistance/advocacy sites |
|
Threats |
Sites concerning hacking, phreaking,
phishing, virus creation, password cracking,
illegal software, warez, proxies and
redirectors, fraud, credit card number
generation, dialers, and other identifiable
threats |
Firefly's Netintelligence uses a unique combination of
detection tools and techniques that can identify
harmful websites. The Firefly's Netintelligence central
databases contain in excess of 30 million
digital fingerprints, which identify a file out
of millions of other files.
These fingerprints are generated from an
assessment process, which involves our dedicated
team of specialists physically reviewing the
material and determining the categories to which
the material should be assigned. The material
can take various forms: images, website
addresses (URLs), files, movies etc.
Firefly's Netintelligence Home Edition constantly compares
web access requests against the Firefly's
Netintelligence
databases for matches. If a member of your
household is attempting to reach a web resource
which has been found and classified within the
Firefly's Netintelligence database, and which you have
decided they shouldn’t see, they will be denied
access.
I have managed
to reach a website that should be in one of the
categories I have blocked. How did this happen,
and what should I do?
A.
A new
website is added to the internet every few
seconds. Whilst our assessment techniques are
constantly operating 24 hours per day, it
sometimes takes a little time for websites to
fall within our radar.
As filtering products such as Firefly's
Netintelligence
become more widely used, the purveyors of
harmful content are constantly seeking ways to
ensure that their websites are visited, and not
blocked. (For example, many children will want
to visit the website Britney.com to get the
latest news on their favourite pop star, but if
they mis-spell or mistype the name as
Brittny.com they will be directed to an adult
material site.) At Firefly's Netintelligence we recognise
this issue - which is why we physically view the
content on the websites and why we capture
digital fingerprints of inappropriate images and
files in our assessment process.
If you do find a website that you feel we should
assess, please let us know by submitting the
website address to us.
You can do by clicking
here
You are blocking a
site that appears to be quite harmless. What do
I need to do to get this ‘unblocked’?
A. If you believe that we have blocked a
website in error, you can advise us by
submitting a request for reassessment - you can
do this via the Firefly's Netintelligence ‘blocking’ page
that appears in place of the website you were
trying to access. In the meantime, to ‘unblock’
the site for your own use, you can add the
website address to your ‘Managed Internet’
personal ‘allow’ list – this means that even
though blocking is still ‘on’ for the category
in general, you will be able to visit this
particular site.
I want to
apply a category to ‘Managed Internet’ so that I
am generally protected, but I want to make some
exceptions (websites in this category which I
will be able to access). What can I do?
A. To ‘unblock’ a site in one of our
categories (at least for your own personal use),
you can add the website address to your ‘Managed
Internet’ personal ‘allow’ list – having this
list means that even though blocking is still
‘on’ for the category in general, you will be
able to visit these particular sites.
I need to do
some research and wish to have unrestricted
access to the Internet. What do I need to do?
A. When you don’t want any of the
filtering rules to apply to you, simply set your
user as ‘inactive’ under ‘Edit Users’, by
clicking on the ‘No’ radio button under
‘Active?’, and saving your changes. This tells
Firefly's Netintelligence not to monitor your user’s
activity at all, including preventing access to
blocked sites. When you’re finished your work,
you can easily reset your user to ‘active’
again.
I want my
children to visit only certain websites, and to
be prevented from visiting all other websites.
What do I do?
A. Firefly's Netintelligence Home Edition has a
feature specifically designed for this very
purpose: ‘Safe Internet’. To use this feature,
go to ‘Safe Internet’, then:
1. Select the user’s tab
2. Add the addresses of the websites that you
want him/her to be able to access
This user will now only be able to visit the
sites that you have included in his or her
personal list.
How can I
ensure that my children only use the internet
during certain times of the day?
A. You can limit/restrict the length of
time that your children can use both the PC and
the Internet using Firefly's Netintelligence's Time
Controls feature. You simply determine for how
long and when you want your family to be able to
use the PC or Internet and 'click' on the
appropriate 1/2 hour time periods, using the
very simple Time Control panel, to allow them
access at your specified times. You can set
different access 'rules' for each individual
family member and you can also vary the access
by day - allowing longer access at weekends for
example.
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