Hello,
Although this is likely far beyond my programming skills, I would be interested in making a system level internet filter (like parental control software) for Mac OS X. Do you know how this might be done? Or if it might be done? Do most webrowsers use a system library of some sort to handle http connections? If not, how would I have control of what happens between the remote site and the webrowser? In progressive levels of complexity, I would like to:
1. Block http requests to sites whose domain names match certain patterns
2. Return an alternate html file or image, as appropriate, in response to such requests (so a web browser would see a warning message instead of a server could not be reached error)
3. Actually screen/modify the content of transfered files before their being displayed.
I suspect, from using the excellent program webwasher for OS 9, which uses a local proxy server to filter internet ads, that some sort of super-slim proxy server (with the features I've described added) might work. Now, I only know in principle what a proxy server is -- I don't know how they work. If this is the best solution, is there an slim, functional, open-source proxy server I could use as a starting point? How would I tell the web browser to use it?
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