Block YouTube, while allowing certain EMBEDDED YouTube videos to play.

FireKnightFireKnight
in Firebox - Other

Hello all, seeing if anyone has a resolution, or have set something up similar to what I am trying to do. I am trying to Block the YouTube site as a whole, but allow embedded videos to play on a URL I have allowed.
One of our networks needs to be very restrictive when it comes to internet access and I am using WebBlocker to do this. I have it set to "when a URL is uncategorized - DENY" Then, if that network needs access to a per-determined website that my company wants, I white-list that website on the exceptions list. For the most part this has worked out perfectly. The issue I have been having is, we want to whitelist a certain website that has embedded YouTube videos. I have an entire URL list for the embedded videos. I have included those videos in the exceptions list along with the website that has them embedded. However, when the website loads, those whitelisted embedded videos wont play. The only time the videos play, is if I white list YouTube entirely.
Along with the specific YouTube videos that have been whitelisted, I've tried whitelisting sties like:
.googlevideo.com/videoplayback/
.youtube.com/embed/
.youtube.com/yts/jsbin/
.youtube.com/yts/cssbin/
.youtube.com/get_video_info?/

My question is: Is there a way to block YouTube, while allowing embedded YouTube videos to play in a different URL (The site that has them embedded.)
Should I maybe try using policy manager to accomplish this? If so what would that policy look like? Thank you for any and all help!!

Comments

  • Bruce_BriggsBruce_Briggs

    Please post a sample URL for a whitelisted YouTube video

    I would expect that a WebBlocker whitelist entry shown above should look like this:
    .googlevideo.com/videoplayback/

  • Tony_LilleyTony_Lilley

    Anyone, Looking for pretty much the same. Allowing videos to play but not allowing access to YouTube itself.

  • Bruce_BriggsBruce_Briggs

    Care to provide a specific example?

  • james.carsonjames.carson Moderator, WatchGuard Representative

    @Tony_Lilley That's going to be difficult because you need to access the website to pull the video data down. If it's blocked, that generally won't work. A youtube video page will generally touch 30+ resources in different places just to be able to play that video.

    -James Carson
    WatchGuard Customer Support

Sign In to comment.