Can you track the length of time or exact time a person using your computer was visiting a site?
We have a staff computer that was recently used to check a hotmail account, this is against our company policy. The hotmail account owner says she didn't log into her account through the office computer as she wasn't even in that day. Is there any way for us to verify the length of time that she was or was not visiting this site? As our computer's history clearly shows that the hotmail account was visited. Any help would be most appreciated. Is there a way to lock company computers so that only work sites can be visited?
All Replies (2)
The built-in "Show All History" command will show the latest load of each URL. If there were repeated loads during a period of time, that data is recorded in the history database (places.sqlite, in the currently active profile folder), but the repetitions are not shown in the dialog. You would need an add-on to see the additional detail.
As far as I know, there isn't a way to measure the duration of actually viewing a page. I've seen a Windows program that records the currently active Window, so you could see when someone switched to another program, but if someone leaves their desk or answers the phone, there's no way for Firefox or any other software to know they are not using the browser.
Regarding restricting the sites that can be viewed, I think the most reliable approach is a proxy server, but administering it could be a headache. You also could look at client software like K9 Web Protection (free for home use, but not for businesses): http://www1.k9webprotection.com/#organization
Is this a shared computer? Bear in mind that Firefox can resume the previous browsing session, either by default at startup, or on demand during the next session. That will cause Firefox to reload all windows and tabs from that earlier session. This might explain how a page was (re)loaded on a day when someone was not in the office.