How to prevent PCs on my network from Downloading?

Question

I want to stop other local area network clients from downloading because it slows down the speed of Net and even sometimes i have to wait for yahoo home page to open for 20-30 seconds. Please help me.

Answer 1

Internet Explorer Goto Tools, Security Settings -> you will see a settle enabling or disabling downloads.

Answer 2

The previous answer that indicated a setting in internet explorer would work, and would prevent individuals from getting access to P2P programs, but it is only limited to browser activities. If your clients are already have access to P2P or FTP programs to download music or videos etc, you'll need to install applications or a network devices that monitor your QOS (Quality of Service) They are designed to prioritize data packets that access the internet and will drop or limit the access to which these packets can be sent at a time. Most newer firewalls do support function and network vendors such as Cisco, Juniper Networks, 3Com or Alcatel have a products to choose from

Answer 3

You aren't specific enough with your quesiton to get a real good answer. And I don't know how big your network is, so I'm assuming it's small with about 5 clients.

There are different types of downloads, file downloads, filesharing programs, etc which can all speak at different levels of your network traffic. You COULD do a setting change to not allow downloads, but then you could get users undoing that setting change. So your best bet is to see if you can stop it at your firewall.

You can usually block particular programs either by blocking particular ports, or by program name, if your firewall has it programed in it.

Your other option is to get a faster internet connection.