User guide

Using Web Rules
188 Check Point ZoneAlarm User Guide
Note: Web rules differ from the Web Filtering subscription service in the following
ways:
• The Web Filtering service is subscription-based and requires a
connection to the Service Center, while Web rules are included with the
ZoneAlarm router.
• The Web Filtering service is centralized, extracting URLs from HTTP
requests and sending the URLs to the Service Center to determine
whether they should be blocked or allowed. With Web rules, HTTP
requests are analyzed in the gateway itself.
• The Web Filtering service is category based; that is, it filters Web sites
based on the category to which they belong. In contrast, Web rules
allow and block specific URLs.
You can use either content filtering solution or both in conjunction. When a user
attempts to access a Web site, the ZoneAlarm router first evaluates the Web rules.
If the site is not blocked by the Web rules, the Web Filtering service is then
consulted. For information on the Web Filtering service, see Web Filtering on page
276.
The ZoneAlarm router processes Web rules in the order they appear in the Web Rules table,
so that rule 1 is applied before rule 2, and so on. This enables you to define exceptions to
rules, by placing the exceptions higher up in the Web Rules table.