Gargoyle Forum

I'd suggest that an option to set SafeSearch (http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=144686&hl=en) would be an extremely valuable addition to Gargoyle.
Google advise:

If you deploy a proxy on your web traffic, it may be possible to configure your proxy to append &safe=strict to all search requests sent to Google. This parameter enables strict SafeSearch for all searches, regardless of the setting on the Google Preferences page.

Based on this statment it would seem to me that it should not be too hard to implement. Is this right?

No. While the statement you quote is correct, doing this with iptables (instead of a proxy) would be very tricky.

Right now the iptables modules only monitor the data flowing through the router and depending on what it sees block it or redirect it, not alter it. This is even trickier because you want to add something -- if the size goes beyond the allowed packet size (above the MTU) there's a huge problem (though admitedly, I don't think this is likely with simple http requests, but it's still possible and an edge case that could cause problems).

Also, if you search using an encrypted connection (https://google.com), the router won't pick anything up since the connection is encrypted.

Both of these problems can be circumvented using a proxy, but proxies eat up a lot of memory, which we don't have an small devices like the WRT54GL (only 16MB).

Congradulations on a successful migration and thanks so much for your informative comment. You've certainly given a newbie like me lots to think about/study....again.

Ok I've thought and studied this matter a little more. I've also read the "L7 protocol enhancement" posting by pbix.
I figure that if you were to include a "Google SafeSearch" option in your list of Applications it would have huge appeal for those (like me) that would be interested in a Whitlist only mode of operation for most of the time that the internet is made available in the home.
Example:
Kids say need access to info for homework. OK then allow them access to Wikipedia only. Kids then say that's not enough. OK then allow them access to Google SafeSearch as well (of course each individual device would need to be set to operate Google search this way). They can then tell you what additional info they need access to.

PS. It makes more sense to continue this discussion here.