A benchmark of Internet content filtering software and services gives high marks to Poesia, a joint French/British Open Source content filter. Similar marks are given to Dansguardian, another Open Source content filter.
The benchmark by IT consultancy Deloitte and the Catholic University Leuven in Belgium was carried out at the request of the European Commission. The results were published last December.
Poesia is ranked as a very fast content filter, getting four out of four marks for this characteristic. It scores three out of four for security integrity and legal compliance. Effectiveness is ranked 3.5 out of four.
Poesia, coincidentally, is sponsored by the EC. The software is developed at the Ecole Nouvelle d’ingenieurs en communication in Villenueve d’Ascq, France. Also involved is the Liverpool Hope University College in the United Kingdom. The software is released under the GPL license. The application is designed for implementation on GNU/Linux.
The French/British filter blocks content deemed inappropriate in web content, email, and internet news. According to the developers its technology provides a more effective filter than competing applications. The software scans texts, urls and Javascripts and can even filter inappropriate content in images. The first versions of the application are available in English, Italian and Spanish.
The developers expect that preparing version for other European languages should be easy, "because of the open-source model and the portability of our software."
"We aim to become the standard filtering solution deployed by educational institutions."
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