Custom lists allow you to set exactly which sites are viewable for your users. To create a custom list, you click on the ‘Create New Custom List’ link below the submission button to enable or disable the customisable proxy server. When you click on this an additional section appears. This section is broken down into several regions:

Nickname
Provide your custom list with a name.

Description
Provide your custom list with a description that explains the purpose of the list.

Inactive List
Here you can add new websites to be included on your list. Add as many sites as you wish (just one per line), and then ‘submit’ them to be moved into the ‘Active List’ using the arrow that points to the right, from the inactive list to the active one. Remember to include the 'http://' at the start of each site address.

Active List
This text box contains the list of sites that are actively used on the list, either to be blocked or allowed depending on the list type. To move sites out of the active list and into the inactive list you select it with your mouse (to select more than one, hold down the Ctrl key whilst selecting multiple sites) and then click on the arrow pointing to the left, pointing from the active list towards the inactive list.

Some example sites (including the use of wildcards which are explained later):

http://www.fish.com/
http://*cows.com/
http://www.sausages.co.uk/*
http://*computers.org.uk/one/*

Remember to click on the ‘Save List Settings’ button at the bottom of the screen whenever you make any changes to a custom list.

Websites and Wildcards
If you simply enter in the site address you wish to match, such as http://www.fish.com/, this will match whenever a user on the associated ADSL line types into their web browser http://www.fish.com/. This rule will not match anything else such as http://fish.com/ or http://www.fish.com/one.html.

To match more than just the URL you have entered you use ‘wildcards’ (*) to tell the web content filter that you want to match everything within a certain web directory or domain. For example http://sausages.co.uk/* means it will match all pages that fall within that particular site, including http://sausages.co.uk/content/pages.html.

In order for a list to work properly you should always use wildcards to account for "any" pages within a site and subsection. You should also use a wildcard on the subdomain. For example - http://*sausage.co.uk will ensure that http://www.sausage.co.uk will be filtered.

The ideal site address for the most reliable filtering would be - http://*sausage.co.uk/*

Amending Custom Lists
If you find you have made a mistake then click on the website address in the active list and then click on the arrow pointing to the left (from the active list towards the inactive list). Once amended you can push them back to the active list through use of the right arrow.

Once you have created a list you will notice that the blacklist/whitelist table at the top of the page has an additional entry. The nickname you gave your list will be shown, if you hover your mouse over the nickname you will see that a box appears showing the description you gave the list. Now you should choose whether you want to black or whitelist the contents.

To edit an existing custom list you simply click on the nickname, at which point you will be in editing mode and the instructions above apply. To delete a list you go to edit it and then click on the “Delete List” button at the bottom of the page. Now, you should notice it disappears from the table list at the top of the page.

Troubleshooting Custom Lists

1. Custom lists are an ideal way to amend mistakes in the built-in lists, by presenting exceptions to the built-in list's rules. We don't recommend that you try and manage large custom lists, as these are not usually required if you apply wildcards.
   
   
2. www.google.com is not the same as google.com. If you have a rule (with no sub-domain wildcard) for google.com it will not catch people who type www.google.com. To catch both you should use http://*google.com/
   
   
3. If you have a site address such as www.wibble.org on a blacklist, it will only stop people visiting the index page of the site. You must use a wildcard, for example www.wibble.org/* to ensure all the other pages on the site are also blocked.

4. In order to keep the performance of your browsing as fast as possible, we advise that you don't include more than 50 addresses on a custom list. Custom lists that are larger than this should not be neccessary if you allow the built-in lists to do most of the filtering work.

5. You cannot specify IP addresses to block unless this is what is actually typed into the address bar of the web browser. If you want to block off a particular IP address then we would highly recommend you use a firewall instead.