Blocking graphical advertisements

In some cases, web protection software displays a very small, blank image file (BlockImage.gif) instead of a standard or security block page. This occurs when:

  • The Advertisements category is blocked, and
  • A site tries to display an image (like a GIF or JPG file) hosted at a URL in the Advertisements category.

Advertisements are often displayed in frames or iframes on a page that also displays non-advertisement information. In this case, graphical advertisements typically appear as white (empty) boxes on the page. The rest of the site content displays normally.

In some cases, an entire site may be made up of advertisement images. In this case, the user will see a blank web page in the browser instead of a standard block message. Users can tell that the site has been blocked because of the URL, which is something like this:

http://<Filtering_Service_IP_address>:15871/cgi-bin/ blockpage.cgi?ws-session=<session number>

If you would prefer to show an image other than the default, 1-pixel block image, simply replace the default file:

Steps

  1. Navigate to the block page directory on the Filtering Service machine (C:\Program Files\Websense\Web Security\BlockPages\Images or /opt/Websense/BlockPages/Images, by default).
  2. Make a backup copy of the original blockImage.gif file.
  3. Name your image blockImage.gif and copy it to the Images directory (overwriting the original file).