Answer
It is possible prevent people from surfing P2P and newsgroup sites by blocking the P2P sites category in a Web Filtering policy.
In GFI WebMonitor 2013 navigate to Settings > Policies > Internet Policies as shown below:
In GFI WebMonitor 2013 navigate to Settings > Policies > Internet Policies as shown below:
You can also prevent any .torrent files from downloading by adding a custom content type to a Download policy. To do this:
- Navigate to Settings > Policies > Download Policies
- Modify the desired Download Policy by clicking its name
- Click Show Custom Content Types
- Click Add Content Type
- Add the content type Application/x-bittorrent as shown below:
If the downloads are already running a network administrator may need to close off the ports the torrents are running on.
GFI WebMonitor 2015 and later
- Navigate to the Manage drop down > Policies
- Locate the Block P2P websites click the power button on
- Select the Edit button with the policy highlighted
- Drag the Users, Groups, IPS to the Drag Elements section
- Add the Users, Groups or IPS to the policy
- Hit save to complete the Policy set up
Notes:
How a torrent works
A .TORRENT file is simply a pointer file to the location of parts of the real file on the Internet. The Torrent client software puts your computer into a peer-to-peer network that then collects the various parts of the real file using the TORRENT file as a guide. Meanwhile, your computer serves as a server to collect parts of other files and forward them to others while you are connected.