URL Filtering Overview

Use the URL filtering feature to control the websites that users on your network can access:

• Category and reputation-based URL filtering—With a URL Filtering license, you can control access to websites based on the URL’s general classification (category) and risk level (reputation). This is the recommended option.

• Manual URL filtering—With any license, you can manually specify individual URLs, groups of URLs, and URL lists and feeds to achieve granular, custom control over web traffic. For more information, see Manual URL Filtering.

See also Security Intelligence, a similar but different feature for blocking malicious URLs, domains, and IP addresses.

The URL filtering feature is applicable only when you use a web browser to browse websites via the HTTP/HTTPS protocol. For other applications, you must use an FQDN-based access control rule instead of URL filtering. See Access Control Rules for more information.