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Azure Firewall web categories

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Web categories let administrators allow or deny user access to web site categories such as gambling websites, social media websites, and others. The categories are organized based on severity under Liability, High-Bandwidth, Business use, Productivity loss, General surfing, and Uncategorized.

For more information, see Azure Firewall Premium features.

Liability

Category Description
Alcohol + tobacco Sites that are contain, promote, or sell alcohol- or tobacco-related products or services.
Child abuse images Sites that present or discuss children in abusive or sexual acts.
Criminal activity Sites that promote or advise on how to commit illegal or criminal activity, or to avoid detection for such activity. Criminal activity includes murder, building bombs, illegal manipulation of electronic devices, hacking, fraud, and illegal distribution of software.
Dating + personals Sites that promote networking for relationships such as dating and marriage, such as matchmaking, online dating, and spousal introduction.
Gambling Sites that offer or related to online gambling, lottery, betting agencies involving chance, and casinos.
Hacking Sites that promote or advise on how to get unauthorized access to proprietary computer systems, for stealing information, perpetrating fraud, creating viruses, or committing other illegal activity related to theft or digital inform.
Hate + intolerance Sites that promote a supremacist political agenda, encouraging oppression of people or groups of people based on their race, religion, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, or nationality.
Illegal drug Sites with information on the purchase, manufacture, and use of illegal or recreational drugs, and misuse of prescription drugs and other compounds.
Illegal software Sites that illegally distribute software or copyrighted materials such as movies, music, software cracks, illicit serial numbers, illegal license key generators.
Lingerie + swimsuits Sites that offer images of models in suggestive costume, with semi-nudity permitted. Includes sites offering lingerie or swimwear.
Marijuana Sites that contain information, discussions, or sale of marijuana and associated products or services, including legalizing marijuana and/or using marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Nudity Sites that contain full or partial nudity that aren't necessarily overtly sexual in intent.
Pornography/sexually explicit Sites that contain explicit sexual content. Includes adult products such as sex toys, CD-ROMs, and videos, adult services such as videoconferencing, escort services, and strip clubs, erotic stories, and textual descriptions of sexual acts.
Self-harm Sites that promote actions that are relating to harming oneself, such as suicide, anorexia, bulimia, etc.
Sex education Sites relating to sex education, including subjects such as respect for partner, abortion, contraceptives, sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy.
Tasteless Sites with offensive or tasteless content, including profanity.
Violence Sites that contain images or text depicting or advocating physical assault against humans, animals, or institutions. Sites of gruesome nature.
Weapons Sites that depict, sell, review, or describe guns and weapons, including for sport.

High bandwidth

Category Description
Image sharing Sites that host digital photographs and images, online photo albums, and digital photo exchanges.
Peer-to-peer Sites that enable direct exchange of files between users without dependence on a central server.
Streaming media + downloads Sites that deliver streaming content, such as Internet radio, Internet TV or MP3 and live or archived media download sites. Includes fan sites, or official sites run by musicians, bands, or record labels.
Download sites Sites that contain downloadable software, whether shareware, freeware, or for a charge.
Entertainment Sites containing programming guides to television, movies, music and video (including video on demand), celebrity sites, and entertainment news.

Business use

Category Description
Business Sites that provide business related information such as corporate web sites. Information, services, or products that help businesses of all sizes to do their day-to-day commercial activities.
Computers + technology Sites that contain information such as product reviews, discussions, and news about computers, software, hardware, peripheral, and computer services.
Education Sites sponsored by educational institutions and schools of all types including distance education. Includes general educational and reference materials such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, online courses, teaching aids and discussion guides.
Finance Sites related to banking, finance, payment or investment, including banks, brokerages, online stock trading, stock quotes, fund management, insurance companies, credit unions, credit card companies, and so on.
Forums + newsgroups Sites for sharing information in the form of newsgroups, forums, bulletin boards. Doesn't include personal blogs.
Government Sites run by governmental or military organizations, departments, or agencies, including police departments, fire departments, customs bureaus, emergency services, civil defense, and counterterrorism organizations.
Health + medicine Sites containing information pertaining to health, healthcare services, fitness and well-being, including information about medical equipment, hospitals, drugstores, nursing, medicine, procedures, prescription medications, etc.
Information security Sites that provide legitimate information about data protection, including newly discovered vulnerabilities and how to block them.
Job search Sites containing job listings, career information, assistance with job searches (such as resume writing, interviewing tips, etc.), employment agencies or head hunters.
News Sites covering news and current events such as newspapers, newswire services, personalized news services, broadcasting sites, and magazines.
Nonprofits + NGOs Sites devoted to clubs, communities, unions, and non-profit organizations. Many of these groups exist for educational or charitable purposes.
Personal sites Sites about or hosted by personal individuals, including those hosted on commercial sites such as Blogger, AOL, etc.
Private IP addresses Sites that are private IP addresses as defined in RFC 1918, that is, hosts that don't require access to hosts in other enterprises (or require limited access) and whose IP address might be ambiguous between enterprises but are well-defined within a certain enterprise.
Professional networking Sites that enable professional networking for online communities.
Search engines + portals Sites enabling the searching of the Web, newsgroups, images, directories, and other online content. Includes portal and directory sites such as white/yellow pages.
Translators Sites that translate Web pages or phrases from one language to another. These sites bypass the proxy server, presenting the risk that unauthorized content might be accessed, similar to using an anonymizer.
Web repository + storage Web pages including collections of shareware, freeware, open source, and other software downloads.
Web-based email Sites that enable users to send and receive email through a web accessible email account.

Productivity loss

Category Description
Advertisements + popups Sites that provide advertising graphics or other ad content files that appear on Web pages.
Chat Sites that enable web-based exchange of real-time messages through chat services or chat rooms.
Cults Sites relating to nontraditional religious practice typically known as "cults," that is, considered to be false, unorthodox, extremist, or coercive, with members often living under the direction of a charismatic leader.
Games Sites relating to computer or other games, information about game producers, or how to obtain cheat codes. Game-related publication sites.
Instant messaging Sites that enable logging in to instant messaging services such as ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger, IRC, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo Messenger, and the like.
Shopping Sites for online shopping, catalogs, online ordering, auctions, classified ads. Excludes shopping for products and services exclusively covered by another category such as health & medicine.
Social networking Sites that enable social networking for online communities of various topics, for friendship, or/and dating.

General surfing

Category Description
Arts Sites with artistic content or relating to artistic institutions such as theaters, museums, galleries, dance companies, photography, and digital graphic resources.
Fashion + Beauty Sites concerning fashion, jewelry, glamour, beauty, modeling, cosmetics, or related products or services. Includes product reviews, comparisons, and general consumer information.
General Sites that don't clearly fall into other categories, for example, blank web pages.
Leisure + recreation Sites relating to recreational activities and hobbies including zoos, public recreation centers, pools, amusement parks, and hobbies such as gardening, literature, arts & crafts, home improvement, home décor, family, etc.
Nature + conservation Sites with information related to environmental issues, sustainable living, ecology, nature, and the environment.
Politics Sites that promote political parties or political advocacy, or provide information about political parties, interest groups, elections, legislation, or lobbying. Also includes sites that offer legal information and advice.
Real estate Sites relating to commercial or residential real estate services, including renting, purchasing, selling or financing homes, offices, etc.
Religion Sites that deal with faith, human spirituality or religious beliefs, including sites of churches, synagogues, mosques, and other houses of worship.
Restaurants + dining Sites that list, review, promote or advertise food, dining or catering services. Includes sites for recipes sites, cooking instruction and tips, food products, and wine advisors.
Sports Sites relating to sports teams, fan clubs, scores, and sports news. Relates to all sports, whether professional or recreational.
Transportation Sites that include information about motor vehicles such as cars, motorcycles, boats, trucks, RVs and the like, including online purchase sites. Includes manufacturer sites, dealerships, review sites, pricing, enthusiast’s clubs, and public transportation etc.
Travel Sites that provide travel and tourism information or online booking or travel services such as airlines, accommodations, car rentals. Includes regional or city information sites.
Uncategorized Sites that haven't been categorized, such as new websites, personal sites, and so on.

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