SafeSurf Internet Content Rating System

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SafeSurf was founded in 1995. The SafeSurf Rating Standard is a very detailed voluntary rating system. It has 9 levels just for age groups.

Like all self rating systems the SafeSurf Rating System depends on webmasters filling out a questionnaire. The questionnaire asks very specific questions about the web page content found within the webmaster's site. The questionnaire is be submitted to the SafeSurf web server which responds with the appropriate HTML content advisory tags.

An Internet browser configured to read the SafeSurf Rating System can recognize these tags. Web pages would be displayed if they meet the criteria selected by the user (parent, school, etc.).

The Content Advisor in Microsoft's Internet Explorer supports the SafeSurf system by using a safesurf.rat file. The rat (RATing) file contains the rating system information that your browser can use to compare against the HTML content tags found on a rated web page.

By default the Internet Explorer browser looks for the rating files in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder. If your system doesn't have the file you can download the safesurf.rat file from the SafeSurf web site. You need to save it to your WINDOWS\SYSTEM subdirectory. SafeSurf has directions for installing their rat file in Internet Explorer's Content Advisor.

Browse the Web with Content Advisor is Microsoft's How-to directions for activating the Internet Explorer 6 content advisor.

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