Blue Coat Systems, Inc.

Alexander Wade Campbell

Vilis Ositis

Cameron Charles Smith

Lee Thomas Dolsen

Methods and systems for blocking unwanted software downloads within a network. Such methods may thereby prevent (i) downloads of spyware from one or more identified locations, and/or (ii) certain outbound communications from the network and/or may also permit software downloads only from specified locations. In general, the policies are defined by rules specified by a network administrator or other user.

Methods and apparatus for blocking unwanted software downloads

In a system for delivering notifications to a network administrator's web browser during normal web browsing, a transaction state management module disposed between the web browser and the Internet tracks and manages various states of communications, a notification module stores notification messages, and an authentication module is configured to authenticate web page requests. Upon identifying the administrator through the authentication module, a client-side proxy temporarily stores the original HTTP request. A notification generator module constructs a notification data, and a special link to acknowledge the notice, which are returned to the web browser. Once the administrator selects the link, the original HTTP request is extracted from storage and forwarded by a server-side proxy to the original destination server.

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Woodinville, WA, United States of America

Alexander Wade Campbell