Avid Blogs website blocked

[JCBigler]

Hey, what's the deal with the Avid Blogs website?

My City web filter won't let me access it because the Barracuda Web Filter classifies it was a "hosted personal page".

Is there anything that Avid can do to change that?

[Bruce Paine]

(moving this to the General forum)

Originally Posted by JCBigler

Hey, what's the deal with the Avid Blogs website?

My City web filter won't let me access it because the Barracuda Web Filter classifies it was a "hosted personal page".

Is there anything that Avid can do to change that?

Has it always been that way or just recently? Yesterday there was a message on the AvidBlogs site saying it was going through routine maintenance, but it is online today.

See if this helps at all. Go to the home page at www.avidblogs.com

If your web filter allows you to refresh that page, hold down Command+Shift+R on Mac or Control+Shift+R on Windows to reload the cached page.

Looking at the Barracuda website, I found this:

Web Use Categories
The websites in the Barracuda Networks database are organized into 96 content categories (subcategories) which are grouped below by supercategories.

When you create rules that block categories of websites, you can choose a supercategory to block, or you can drill down and block websites at the subcategory level. See Related Articles listed at the end of this article for details.
Leisure
Entertainment and personal websites that are normally not business-related.
Category: Hosted Personal Pages
Criteria: Websites which allow users to design and post personal websites.

If you are able to change your settings on that "subcategory level", you may be able to unblock blog sites which Barracuda sees as fitting that criteria.

I also found this, in case it helps, but not sure if it applies to a desktop or mobile device:

Blocked Pages and Temporary Bypass
If you browse to a web page that is not allowed by your organization's policies, you'll see a block page. You can use the Temporary Bypass feature for when you're in an airport, hotel or internet cafe if you need to access a page to connect to the Wi-Fi network. Access Temporary Bypass by tapping the right arrow icon.

[JCBigler]

Originally Posted by Bruce Paine

(moving this to the General forum)



Has it always been that way or just recently? Yesterday there was a message on the AvidBlogs site saying it was going through routine maintenance, but it is online today.
...

If you are able to change your settings on that "subcategory level", you may be able to unblock blog sites which Barracuda sees as fitting that criteria.

Yes, the Avid Blogs site has always been blocked by our City webfilter. I usually have to read the Avid Blogs from my personal computer tethering to my cell phone, or just wait until I get home.

Unfortunately, City IT controls the web filter rules and I don't have access to them.

I just wondered if there was some sort of encoding on the Avid Blogs site that could be changed to not trigger the filter rules. And I figured if I have the problem, then maybe others that work for corporate or government institutions do also.