Alternative to Websense

Nikumba

Nikumba

Nikumba

Soldato
Joined
4 Dec 2002
Posts
3,981
Location
Bourne, Lincs
We currently use Websense on top of ISA2006 to do our proxy/filtering of out internet traffic.

We are looking around at alternatives and just wondering what people use out there?

We have tried CensorNet, Network Gaurdian from Smoothwall both didnt meet our requirments.

So what other options do we have?

Kimbie
 
I think Surf COntrol do a product that sits on top of ISA. I used their stand alone producet a few years ago. It seemed quite good, we did have some issues, but I think it was due to the hardware we were using (old P3 server, was litteraly running 100% CPU all the time), not the software.
 
What are your requirements would be my first question though :)

We're about to start using an appliance from Bloxx.
 
Surfcontrol is owed by Websense and is no longer supported, we had to upgrade to Websense from it, a shame as Surfcontrol did what we wanted.

How do you get on with Web Marshall?

Kimbie
 
im curious to learn why your interested in moving away from it, since it's the combination you are using is what we're about to migrate to... :/

you could take a look at something called untangle, i've used the non-commercial version before and i was very impressed.
 
From a filtering point of view it works well, however it does not work well with how we want to do internet access, we also have issues in teh way it handles unblocking of websites.

The other big thing for us is the total and utter redicolous price they want to charge for a renewal.

Our main requirements are intergrates fully with Active Directory, I can stack filtering groups so if a user is in the generic policy with facebook blocked, i can add their user to the Facebook Allow OU, and create a filter, and the allow will take precednace over the deny.

Network Guardian could not do this, and Censornet didnt get that far as you ahve to do a manual import of AD

Kimbie
 
WebMarshal.

Best set of granular rules I have used in a Filtering product, the latest version of 6 is even better than the early releases.

AD integration. Manual or on a schedule you specify. Use AD groups right as they are imported or drop them into bespoke WebMarshal groups.
Rule testing, quotas, schedules, HTTPS content inspection, text censors, Marshal maintained URL categories, reporting, 3rd party AV/Spyware scanning support as well as custom built modules such as McAfee for marshal etc etc List is endless really.

The only thing I have not been able to do was a complex setup that saw me wanting to push certain URL requests off to a different proxy.

Marshal do have a pretty decent ear too, if you have a sound suggestion/product idea and go through a software partner you often can be heard.

Fully functional 30 day trial on thier site.

Note - I do NOT work for Marshal, I just highly rate their Mail and Web products :)
 
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Panda is ok. We evaluated a few including smoothwall and bloxx. We went for Bloxx in the end as we already had a Bloxx unit. They aren't what you would call cheap though. If you are going for a Bloxx unit, don't be afraid to

1) Ask for substantial discount and play hardball. Threaten to go elsewhere and they will come back witha better offer.I think we started at about £20k and ended up at about 12.
2) Ask to pay over x years. Particularly if you can present a quote from say, Smoothwall or other competitor for spread payments. We are paying over 3 yrs.
 
We use the Clearswift Web Appliance (Mimesweeper for Web 5.0 before that) and have to say it is great. You can either get it as an appliance or just run it vmware.
 
Been having a go with WebMarshal today, and so far its pretty good, like how the groups work, waiting on a cost from our supplier now, to see how it compares

Kimbie
 
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