[SOLVED] How to block any form for download from the net?

[reianza]

How to block any form of download from the net. No website specific. I mean "any form of download".

 

[dudio]

You'd need to set up a seperate User account with limits/permissions, and lock down the main User account with a secure password.

 

[reianza]

You'd need to set up a seperate User account with limits/permissions, and lock down the main User account with a secure password.

How exactly will I do that? Specific procedure please?

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

lol -- unplug your internet equipment. Job done.

 

[reianza]

lol -- unplug your internet equipment. Job done.

Nice one.. seriously.
I need it to control my kids downloading anything. Surfing is allowed. But am trying to control a 300GB allowance we had. Well, we live in world with limited internet. Hope you can help

 

[SkyNetRising]

How to block any form of download from the net. No website specific. I mean "any form of download".

What's the purpose of this?
You understand - any web browsing downloads web page content before displaying in your browser. Blocking any download would also block that.
You can block it in firewall. Disable any outgoing traffic to HTTP (port 80), HTTPS (port 443), FTP (port 20,21). And all web downloads will be blocked (web browsing also).

 

[SkyNetRising]

In windows 10 you can limit data usage. I guess - that's what you want.

Settings\Network&Internet\DataUsage​

 

[bill001g]

I suspect if you need "specific process" you are not going to accomplish this. This is a read the manual question because it is done very differently on different routers. Some routers are very basic and have extremely limited abilities to filter traffic.

Your problem is what is a "download" Very technically when you run speedtest you are downloading a file and then uplaoding a file. Every image you see in a web page is "downloaded" into your machine. You can find all these pictures in the temporary internet cache if you dig around.

It is pretty easy to say block downloads from steam but how do you block something from say google. Even worse all the traffic is now encrypted so you can't really tell what they are doing on a site.

There was a older third party router firmware called gargoyle that let you set monthly data caps by user but I have not followed it in a while so I do not know how well it runs on more current routers.

It is very hard to do what you want unfortunately even with the best firewalls in existence because of the encryption. It was all done after the government got caught spying so if they can't tell what you are doing it is hard for you.

I would try the block specific sites and hope that helps.

Limiting it in the end clients is always your best option. It is also the simplest place to filter the traffic since it is before it enters the encryption. I used to recommend K9 since it is free but the bluecoat company got sold so I don't know the status of that software.

 

[SkyNetRising]

You can also limit available bandwidth settings in router.
300GB per month ~= 117KB/s (300 * 1024 * 1024/31/24/60/60)
Make such limit and your incoming traffic will never exceed 300GB/month.

 

[reianza]

Let's just say I wanted to blocked those large files being downloaded

 

[SkyNetRising]

Not really possible to achieve the exact result, you want.

 

[Alabalcho]

Many routers have "Set weekly / monthly limit, after which cut everything" function. See whether you have one. Once it kicks in, and you explain why it kicked in, hopefully affected parties will take a lesson.

Another point in "Why it's not possible": An hour of online video could easily exceed 1GB. So, it's not just blocking downloads, but streaming as well.