About WebBlocker Categories

Applies To: FireCloud Internet Access

FireCloud is a beta product that is only available to participants in the WatchGuard FireCloud Beta program. To try FireCloud Internet Access, join the WatchGuard Beta test community.

WebBlocker uses content categories to group different websites. A website is added to a category when the content of the website meets the criteria for the content category.

For information about how WebBlocker categorizes a site, or to send site categorization feedback, go to:

WebBlocker Categories

Abortion

Parent category that contains abortion-related categories.

Abortion: Sites with neutral or balanced presentation of the issue.
Pro-Choice: Sites that provide information about or are sponsored by organizations that support legal abortion or that offer support or encouragement to those seeking the procedure.
Pro-Life: Sites that provide information about or are sponsored by organizations that oppose legal abortion or that seek increased restriction of abortion.

Adult Material

Parent category that contains adult-oriented categories; might also contain age-restricted content.

Adult Content: Sites that show full or partial nudity in a sexual context, but not sexual activity; erotica; sexual paraphernalia; sex-oriented businesses including clubs, nightclubs, escort services; and sites supporting the online purchase of such goods and services.
Lingerie and Swimsuit: Sites that offer images of models in lingerie or swimsuits, including lingerie or swimwear for sale.
Nudity: Sites that offer depictions of nude or seminude human forms.
Sex: Sites that depict or graphically describe sexual acts or activity, including exhibitionism; sites offering direct links to such sites.
Sex Education: Sites that offer educational information about sex and sexuality.

Bandwidth

Parent category that contains categories known to consume bandwidth resources.

Educational Video: Sites that host videos with academic or instructional content.
Entertainment Video: Sites that host videos with entertainment-oriented content.
Internet Radio and TV: Sites that provide online radio or television programming.
Internet Telephony: Sites that enable users to make phone calls through the Internet or to obtain information or software for that purpose.
Peer-to-Peer File Sharing: Sites that provide client software to enable peer-to-peer file sharing and transfer.
Personal Network Storage and Backup: Sites that store personal files on web servers for backup or exchange.
Streaming Media: Sites that enable streaming of media content.
Surveillance: Sites that enable real-time monitoring of various operations through network cameras, webcams and other video recording devices.
Viral Video: Sites that host videos with high or rapidly rising popularity.

Business and Economy

Parent category that contains categories related to business and economy.

Business and Economy: Sites sponsored by or devoted to business firms, business associations, industry groups or general business.
Financial Data and Services: Sites that offer investment advice and news and quotations on stocks, bonds and other investment vehicles, but not online trading. Includes banks, credit unions, credit cards, and insurance.
Hosted Business Applications: Sites that provide access to business-oriented web applications and allow storage of sensitive data, excluding those for web collaboration.

Collaboration – Office

Parent category that contains the following categories:

Collaboration - Office: Category used to manage the Office domain.
Office - Apps: Office function that enables a user to collaborate through various applications.
Office - Documents: Office function that enables a user to collaborate through document applications.
Office - Drive: Office function that enables a user to collaborate through virtual storage.
Office - Mail: Office function that enables a user to collaborate through email and messaging.

Drugs

Parent category that contains categories related to legal and illegal drugs and supplements.

Abused Drugs: Sites that promote or provide information about the use of prohibited drugs, except marijuana, or the abuse or unsanctioned use of controlled or regulated drugs; also, paraphernalia associated with such use or abuse.
Marijuana: Sites that provide information about or promote the cultivation, preparation or use of marijuana.
Nutrition: Sites that provide information about nutrition.
Prescribed Medications: Sites that provide information about approved drugs and their medical use.

Education

Parent category that contains categories of relevance to education.

Cultural Institutions: Sites sponsored by museums, galleries, theatres, libraries and similar institutions.
Educational Institutions: Sites sponsored by schools and other educational facilities, by non-academic research institutions, or that relate to educational events and activities.
Educational Materials: Sites that provide information about or that sell or provide curriculum materials or direct instruction; also, learned journals and similar publications.
Reference Materials: Sites that offer reference-shelf content such as atlases, dictionaries, encyclopedias, formularies, white and yellow pages, and public statistical data.

Entertainment

Parent category that contains entertainment-related categories.

Entertainment: Sites that provide information about or promote motion pictures, non-news radio and television, books, humor and magazines.
Media File Download: Sites that enable download of media content.

Extended Protection

Parent category that contains categories inferred to have potential security implications.

Dynamic DNS: Sites that mask their identity using Dynamic DNS services, often associated with advanced persistent threats (APTs).
Elevated Exposure: Sites that camouflage their true nature or that include elements suggesting latent malicious intent.
Emerging Exploits: Sites found to be hosting known and potential exploit code.
Newly Registered Websites: Sites whose domain name was registered recently.
Suspicious Content: Sites found to contain suspicious content.

Government

Parent category that contains categories related to the government, political organizations, and the military.

Government: Sites sponsored by branches, bureaus or agencies of any level of government, except for the armed forces.
Military: Sites sponsored by branches or agencies of the armed services.
Political Organizations: Sites sponsored by or providing information about political parties and interest groups focused on elections or legislation.

Human Interests

Parent category that contains categories related to human interests.

Alcohol and Tobacco: Sites that provide information about, promote or support the sale of alcoholic beverages or tobacco products or associated paraphernalia.
Blogs and Personal Sites: Sites that host blogs and personal sites.
LGBTQIA+: Sites that provide information about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, non-binary or asexual topics, but excluding those with adult content.
Hobbies: Sites that provide information about or promote private and largely sedentary pastimes, but not electronic, video, or online games.
Human Interests: Sites that provide information about matters of daily life, excluding entertainment, health, hobbies, jobs, sex and sports.
Personals and Dating: Sites that assist users in establishing interpersonal relationships, excluding those intended to arrange for sexual encounters.
Restaurants and Dining: Sites that list, review, advertise or promote food, dining or catering services.
Social Networking: Sites of web communities that provide users with means for expression and interaction.

Information Technology

Parent category that contains categories related to information technology.

Computer Security: Sites that provide information about or free downloadable tools for computer security.
Generative AI - Conversation: Sites that specialize in machine-generated conversational content for the purpose of general information, user assistance or entertainment. Includes sites hosting virtual agents and narrow domain conversational applications using AI with ability to generate new content.
Generative AI - Multimedia: Sites that specialize in machine-generated multimedia content such as images, videos or audio. Includes sites that provide information, tools or services related to text-to-speech, video, music, sound or image editing applications using AI with ability to generate new content.
Generative AI - Text & Code: Sites that provide machine-generated text with broad domain applications (including code and translation) using AI and generating new content. Includes sites that provide tools or services that make suggestions, edits, review or create summaries based on user prompts and interactions.
Hacking: Sites that provide information about or promote illegal or questionable access to or use of computer or communication equipment, software or databases.
Information Technology: Sites sponsored by or providing information about computers, software, the Internet and related business firms, including sites supporting the sale of hardware, software, peripherals and services.
Other AI ML Applications: Sites that provide tools or services related to artificial intelligence and machine learning. Includes sites hosting applications with personal productivity or business purposes using AI but not typically capable of generating new content.
Proxy Avoidance: Sites that provide information about how to bypass proxy server features or to gain access to URLs in any way that bypasses the proxy server.
Search Engines and Portals: Sites that support searching the web, news groups or indexes or directories thereof.
Web Analytics: Sites that are associated with web traffic analysis.
Web and Email Marketing: Sites that are associated with online marketing.
Web and Email Spam: Sites whose links are sent in unsolicited commercial email, either as part of campaigns to promote products or services or to entice readers to click through to surveys or similar sites. Also includes sites that show comment spam.
Web Collaboration: Sites that provide virtual workspace for purposes of collaboration and conferencing, which might include sites that enable authorized access to a computer or network from a remote location.
Web Hosting: Sites of organizations that provide hosting services, or top-level domain pages of web communities.
Website Translation: Sites that enable translation of website text.

Internet Communication

Parent category that contains categories related to internet-based communication and exchange.

General Email: Sites that provide email services open to general use.
Organizational Email: Log in sites for corporate or institutional email systems.
Text and Media Messaging: Sites that enable the sending of messages and other content through SMS, EMS, MMS, or similar protocols.
Web Chat: Sites that host web chat services or that support or provide information about chat through HTTP or IRC.

Miscellaneous

Parent category that contains categories identified by URL attributes, not classified elsewhere.

Content Delivery Networks: Commercial hosts that deliver content to subscribing websites.
Dynamic Content: URLs that are generated dynamically by a web server.
File Download Servers: Web servers whose primary function is to deliver files for download.
Network Errors: URLs with hosts that do not resolve to IP addresses.
Private IP Addresses: IP addresses defined in RFC 1918, 'Address Allocation for Private Intranets.'
Uncategorized: Sites not categorized in the Primary Database.
Web Images: Sites that deliver image content.
Web Infrastructure: Sites that are associated with website architecture.

News and Media

The parent category that contains categories related to news, magazines, and other media.

Alternative Journals: Online equivalents to supermarket tabloids and other fringe publications.
News and Media: Sites that offer current news and opinion, including those sponsored by newspapers, general-circulation magazines or other media.

Productivity

Parent category that contains categories considered to affect productivity in a corporate environment.

Advertisements: Sites that provide advertising graphics or other ad content files.
Application and Software Download: Sites that enable download of software, applications.
Instant Messaging: Sites that enable instant messaging.
Message Boards and Forums: Sites that host message boards, bulletin boards and other unaffiliated discussion forums.
Online Brokerage and Trading: Sites that support active trading of securities and investment management.
Pay-to-Surf: Sites that reward users for online activity such as viewing websites, advertisements or email.

Religion

Parent category that contains categories related to religion.

Lesser-Known Religions: Sites that provide information about or promote lesser known religions and religious beliefs.
Widely-Known Religions: Sites that provide information about or promote more widely known religions and religious beliefs, including but not limited to Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, Shinto and Sikhism, as well as atheism.

Security

Security-related website categories that allow you to develop policies to deny access to sites associated with spyware, phishing, keylogging, and malicious mobile code.

Advanced Malware Command and Control: Protects against outbound transmissions from a compromised machine to a malicious command-and-control center.
Advanced Malware Payloads: Inbound network transmissions of payloads intended to exploit a machine.
Bot Networks: Protects against outbound transmissions from a compromised machine to a malware command-and-control center.
Compromised Websites: Sites that are vulnerable and known to host an injected malicious code or unwanted content.
Custom-Encrypted Uploads: Outbound network transmissions of documents, payloads, and data that have been encrypted using custom encryption methods.
Files Containing Passwords: Documents and data that include lists of network passwords such as Unix and Windows user passwords; also, documents that potentially contain lists of usernames and passwords.
Keyloggers: Sites that download programs that record all keystrokes, and which might send those keystrokes (potentially including passwords or confidential information) to an external party.
Malicious Embedded Link: Sites infected with a malicious link.
Malicious Embedded Iframe: Sites infected with a malicious iframe.
Malicious Websites: Sites containing code that might intentionally modify users' systems without their consent and cause harm.
Mobile Malware: Protects against malicious websites and applications designed to run on mobile devices.
Phishing and Other Frauds: Sites that counterfeit legitimate sites to elicit financial or other private information from users.
Potentially Exploited Documents: Documents containing content with suspicious characteristics that could lead to the exploitation of a machine.
Potentially Unwanted Software: Sites using technologies that alter the operation of a user's hardware, software or network in ways that diminish control over the user experience, privacy or the collection and distribution of personal information.
Spyware: Sites that download software that generate HTTP traffic (other than simple user identification and validation) without a user's knowledge.
Suspicious Embedded Link: Sites suspected of being infected with a malicious link.

Shopping

Parent category that contains categories related to shopping.

Internet Auctions: Sites that support the offering and purchasing of goods between individuals.
Real Estate: Sites that provide information about renting, buying, selling or financing residential real estate.
Shopping: Sites that support the online purchase of consumer goods and services except: sexual materials, lingerie, swimwear, investments, medications, educational materials, computer software or hardware, alcohol, tobacco, travel, vehicles and parts, weapons.

Social Organizations

Parent category that contains categories of chartered groups or clubs, or similar social organizations.

Professional and Worker Organizations: Sites sponsored by or that support or offer information about organizations devoted to professional advancement or workers' interests.
Service and Philanthropic Organizations: Sites sponsored by or that support or offer information about organizations devoted to doing good as their primary activity.
Social and Affiliation Organizations: Sites sponsored by or that support or offer information about organizations devoted chiefly to socializing or common interests other than philanthropy or professional advancement.

Social Web - Facebook

Category used to manage the Facebook domain. Contains:

Facebook Apps : Facebook function that enables a user to open or use an app.
Facebook Chat: Facebook function that enables a user to chat within the Facebook community.
Facebook Commenting: Facebook function that enables a user to comment or like.
Facebook Events: Facebook function that enables a user to create, modify or respond to an event within the Facebook community.
Facebook Friends: Facebook function that enables a user to add a connection.
Facebook Games: Facebook function that enables a user to open or play a game.
Facebook Groups: Facebook function that enables a user to create, modify or join a group within the Facebook community.
Facebook Mail: Facebook function that enables a user to send an email within the Facebook community.
Facebook Photo Upload: Facebook function that enables a user to upload a photo.
Facebook Posting: Facebook function that enables a user to share a post, status or link.
Facebook Questions: Facebook function that enables a user to ask a question within the Facebook community.
Facebook Video Upload: Facebook function that enables a user to upload a video.

Social Web - LinkedIn

Category used to manage the LinkedIn domain. Contains:

LinkedIn Updates: LinkedIn function that enables a user to edit a profile or post an update.
LinkedIn Mail: LinkedIn function that enables a user to send an email within the LinkedIn community.
LinkedIn Connections: LinkedIn function that enables a user to add a connection.
LinkedIn Jobs: LinkedIn function that enables a user to perform activities related to job search.

Social Web - Twitter

Category used to manage the Twitter domain. Contains:

Twitter Posting: Twitter function that enables a user to post an update.
Twitter Mail: Twitter function that enables a user to send an email within the Twitter community.
Twitter Follow: Twitter function that enables a user to add a connection.

Social Web Controls - Various

Category used to manage various domain controls. Contains:

Blog Commenting: General function that enables a user to post a comment.
Blog Posting: General function that enables a user to post a blog entry.
Classified Posting: General Function that enables a user to post a classified ad.

Social Web - YouTube

Category used to manage the YouTube domain. Contains:

YouTube Commenting: YouTube function that enables a user to comment, like or dislike.
YouTube Video Upload: YouTube function that enables a user to upload a video.
YouTube Sharing: YouTube function that enables a user to share a video within and outside of the YouTube community.

Sports

Parent category that contains categories related to sports.

Sport Hunting and Gun Clubs: Sites that provide information about or directories of gun clubs and similar groups, including war-game and paintball facilities.
Sports: Sites that provide information about or promote sports, active games and recreation.

Stand-Alone Categories

Advocacy Groups: Sites that promote change or reform in public policy, public opinion, social practice, economic activities and relationships.
Gambling: Sites that provide information about or promote gambling or support online gambling, involving a monetary exchange.
Games: Sites that enable a user to play or download a game.
Health: Sites that provide information or advice on personal health or medical services, procedures, devices, or self-help resources.
Illegal or Unethical: Sites that promote or provide instruction in nonviolent crime or unethical behavior or the avoidance of prosecution.
Internet Watch Foundation: Sites that offer content that, in the judgment of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), violates UK laws respecting child abuse (i.e., child pornography).
Intolerance: Sites that condone intolerance towards any individual or group.
Job Search: Sites that offer information about or support the seeking of employment or employees.
Militancy and Extremist: Sites that offer information about or promote or are sponsored by groups advocating antigovernment beliefs or action.
Parked Domain: Sites that are expired, offered for sale, or known to show targeted links and advertisements.
Special Events: Sites devoted to a current event that requires separate categorization.
Tasteless: Sites with content that is improper or unsuitable, but not violent.
Travel: Sites that provide information about or promote travel-related services and destinations.
Vehicles: Sites that provide information about or promote vehicles, including those that support online purchase of vehicles or parts.
Violence: Sites that feature or promote violence or bodily harm, including self-inflicted harm; or that gratuitously show images of death, gore or injury; or that feature images or descriptions that are grotesque or frightening.
Weapons: Sites that provide information about, promote, or support the sale of weapons and related items.