How Echo•Filters Hosted Service Works
When users visit a Web site, they typically type or click on a Web address that identifies the site by name. The site on the Internet, however, does not exist by name but rather by a unique IP address. All Web browsers and Web enabled applications use the Domain Name System (DNS) to associate these numeric IP addresses with their more meaningful and descriptive domain names.

Nothing to Install - Nothing to Maintain
The Echo•Filters Hosted Service becomes your organization's DNS server. Our DNS servers have the additional capability to determine if a Web site is safe or harmful before it returns the Web site's IP address. Your computers simply need to be configured to perform DNS lookups at the Echo•Filters Hosted Service. This is easily done through a change to your DHCP Server settings or, better yet if you have one, a simple change to your internal DNS Server. Though simple in design, this solution is highly secure and incredibly stable due to the maturity and fault tolerance built into the Internet Domain Name System.

You May not Get There from Here
When a user submits a domain name (DNS request) to the Echo•Filters Hosted Service, the Web site is first looked up in our proprietary Echo•Filters™ URL Database. If the Web site is considered safe, the site’s actual IP address is returned to the user that requested it. If the Web site is considered harmful, the Web filter returns the IP address of a block page that explains that the Web site has been blocked.

This means that when a Web site is blocked, the Web browser or Web enabled application never receives the actual address of the requested Web site and therefore cannot download the content to the computer, even accidentally.

Categorized Web Content.
The Echo•Filters Hosted Service utilizes seven set categories of the over forty Web categories available in our Employee Internet Management products. Updates to the Echo•Filters database are done four times an hour as our proprietary search algorithms scour over 1.6 terabytes of Web content each month looking for inappropriate or harmful content. Categories blocked include Adult, Error or Blank, Gambling, Hacking and Warez, Illegal Activities, Parked Domains and Pornography. These categories are highly prone to contain spyware, malware and other unsafe components that contribute to the spread of viruses and trojans.