Is it possible to use group policy or some other method, to disable users from downloading files from the internet?

We have had 81gig of downloads in a month which is way to much for our network, so we need to find a way to limit users from downloading....

thanks

limit speed for each user

limit max filesize

all this has to be done on the proxy or router

Like demlak said,

router/proxy.. Then get real tight and starting shutting down access to various outgoing ports too if you want.. Something that inspects the protocol on the fly and starts filtering further is the key.

Via Group Policy: open User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Windows Components \ Internet Explorer \ Internet Control Panel \ Security Page \ <desired zone> and set "Allow File Downloads" to Disabled (requires at least IE 6.0 on XP SP2).

For downlevel clients, it's possible to achieve the same result by setting the security zone configuration on a reference computer and then importing it into User Configuration \ Windows Settings \ Internet Explorer Maintenance \ Security \ Security Zones and Content Ratings.

You may well find disallowing all file downloads to be too restrictive. In that case you'll need to implement some form of Internet content filtering.