Historically:

Historically, Caylix blocked Facebook for two main reasons.

1. Poor content filtering - a lot of content was not betting blocked by the KFS filter.
2. No ability to easily block it for those customers who do not want to utilize Facebook

Currently (March 2011):

We have installed a new and improved filter system specifically for Facebook and YouTube. Anything with naughty words is be banned as usual by the word filtering. We have also added a feature to make it easy for users to block sites they don't want but yet pass the general filter criteria.

The filter is not blocking some pages that I don't agree with...

Our job is to continue improving the filtering. As usual, you can report such content the site to us to be screened and blocked.

I don't want my kids using Facebook!

No problem. Kindly send us a message and we'll block it for your @caylix.com filter login.

Things to consider for safe use of Facebook!

The current policy is that YouTube is blacklisted. On a per-request basis, we whitelist individual videos that pass the filter criteria.

The reason for this is that while the vast majority of YouTube is either objectionable or time-wasting/useless, we do realize that there some very high quality videos that are important for business and educational purposes.

Videos can be accessed in a variety of ways:
• Google search for youtube + topic
• Embededded into other websites
• Direct link to the particular www.youtube.com video page
• via the Dutch Kliksafe video portal

In time, we hope to build our own video portal (for instance, http://videos.caylix.com) that provides safe and easy access to YouTube.com videos.

If you are unable to access a YouTube video, please use the Caylix "blocked" page to request it to be opened up. If you don't get a block page, of it is not available with in 1 business day, then kindly send us a message so that we can investigate further.

By the way, reviewing videos does require a lot of effort; if you are willing to help with screening that would be appreciated!

The filtering impact of using our filtering proxy servers is very small. In fact, some customers tell us that their Internet feels faster when using Caylix then going directly to a website.

Our filter servers have much faster CPUs then your computer.

We have hundreds of customers, and the only people who complain about speed are dialup users (Obviously) and people with a faulty connection such as poor reception on their broadband/mobile wireless connection. In the later case, the users would have slow internet without the filter as well.

We have multiple gigabit fiber connections from our datacenter to other networks such as Telus and Shaw, ensuring that there are no bottlenecks.

Our customers across BC, Alberta, Ontario and various USA states connect through our Vancouver servers without any major slowdowns.

We take speed very seriously; last year (2009) we upgraded servers and purchased a couple new high performance ones. We closely watch capacity to make sure everything runs nicely.

To summarize, Canada/USA customers using Caylix filtering solutions will not see a significant performance impact.

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While 4shared.com can have some good files, the majority of the content is unacceptable and difficult to safely filter.

Thus, the current policy is that 4shared.com is blocked for Caylix users.

Individual files can be unblocked. As usual, you can use the block page to request an exception to be made for that particular page.

Alternatives to 4shared that aren't blocked:

• http://www.yousendit.com/
• http://www.sendthisfile.com/
• http://www.filemail.com/
• Let know if you have suggestions for any others

Picaboo has been unblocked by Caylix. However, because the Picaboo program does not support proxy servers, it may have some problems connecting. If this happens, please contact our support team for assistance. Many Caylix users are successfully using photobook programs like Picaboo to upload their pictures for printing.

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By default, Caylix blocks MSN (Live) instant messaging. Upon request, we can unblock it for you at no additional charge. Just send a message to our support team. The reason for blocking it is that it can be unsafe if not used in a responsible manner.

If MSN is enabled on your Caylix account but MSN (a.k.a. Windows Live Messenger) still does not work, please click here for steps to fix it.

Our goal is to be able to process unblock requests within 12-24 hours. The preferred and quickest method to request unblocking is actually via the block page. This is very simple, and automatically sends the request to our screening team. If your request has not been processed after 1 full business day, please contact our support team.

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If you are using http://www.msn.com as the default web page in your web browser, you may find that it is blocked by Caylix periodically. MSN needs to be the default home page for Internet Explorer.

MSN.com is not currently blacklisted by Caylix. However, MSN displays a lot of celebrity, entertainment, and movie news. Thus it often is blocked by the word filters.

If you are looking for news, we recommend to use another website such as http://news.google.com which provides much higher quality selection of local and international news from around the world.

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The available filters are Caylix Safe and Caylix Flexible. See the Filtering products. You can also choose for no filter, which gives you an "email-only" connection. The email-only option is available for Dialup, ADSL, and Wireless. See our pricelist for details.

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