Likelihood to Recommend Over the years, [in our experience], the maintenance of the Forcepoint Web Security solution proved to be more cumbersome and troublesome with each version upgrade. In addition, it did not transition well to support the large increase of remote workers. We also experienced weird incompatibilities with the client. We have since replaced this solution with Zscaler Internet Access, a cloud-based secure web gateway solution with a client that behaves as expected, is more flexible, and requires significantly less administration.
Read full review it is well-suited for the following scenarios:Organizations that need to comply with regulatory requirements related to internet usage, such as data privacy and security laws, and that need to monitor and control employee internet activity.Organizations that are concerned about online threats and need to protect their networks and endpoints from malware, phishing, and other types of malicious content.Organizations that need to improve productivity by reducing distractions for employees, and/or need to restrict access to specific websites during work hours.Organizations that need to protect sensitive data such as customer information, financial transactions and other sensitive data, by monitoring and controlling the internet activity on the back-end systems.However, SafeDNS may not be as appropriate for the following scenarios:Organizations that have very limited IT resources and lack the skills and knowledge required to set up and manage SafeDNS Organizations that have specific needs and requirements that are not met by the features and capabilities of SafeDNS, for example organizations that require advanced threat detection and response capabilities.Organizations that may have limited budget, SafeDNS does require a subscription cost, that might not be feasible for smaller businesses with limited resources.Organizations that are using legacy systems that are not compatible with SafeDNS, that may not be able to integrate it to their infrastructure.
Read full review Pros It prevents users from accessing websites that may have recently been created for the purpose of distributing malware. It prevents users from accidentally or intentionally accessing websites that are considered inappropriate for a work environment. It allows us to create different policies for different teams in our organization. Read full review block group of website report blocked website tentative creation of group of profile, like vendor, client, etc. Read full review Cons The user access logs contain a lot of useless information. I understand this is very hard to tackle as I've seen this across any product that logs web activity. I would like to see more customization options of website block pages. Read full review Filtering accuracy: While SafeDNS provides filtering of websites, it's possible that it could be improved to more accurately identify and block unwanted content. This could be achieved by implementing more advanced algorithms or incorporating more data sources. Reporting and analytics: Some users may find that the reporting and analytics capabilities of SafeDNS are lacking and could be improved, for example by providing more detailed information about internet usage, or more sophisticated filtering and reporting tools. Compatibility: Some organizations may have legacy systems that are not fully compatible with SafeDNS. Improving compatibility could make it easier for these organizations to integrate SafeDNS into their existing infrastructure. Read full review Likelihood to Renew It is very stable, the organisation has "locked in" the product and has no plans to change or try another product. We have already renewed our 2019-2020 licenses. It is user friendly and people catch on easily when they first use it. The only downtime is when we install Microsoft updates! It has excellent reporting which help in determining how the organisation's Internet is used and also during both internal and external IT audits.
Read full review Usability Despite the intimidating Linux CLI when you use the appliance for troubleshooting, the web security usability compensates as most of the Administration of the system is done there. It is GUI based and has an easy to use UI where one can navigate around rather easily like getting reports, checking alerts, looking the whole setup under deployment to check if all services are running in one place though there are other parts to the system.
Read full review Support Rating The is a quick first response to acknowledge your issue and the Engineers never take more than two hours to fix an issue and we hardly get issues looking at the fact that the system is pretty stable. There is also a robust Knowledge Base in the site for known problems.
Read full review Implementation Rating Research known issues with upgrading from the Support Knowledge base, this will enable you avoid road blocks along the way and reduce your dependence on Forcepoint Support
Read full review Alternatives Considered To be honest, once using Forcepoint for our Web Security, I have not wanted to look anywhere else. The dashboard gives me quick insight of threats, productivity, and bandwidth usage. Again, this is a layer in my security and it fills many holes. I feel safe and I do like I can just let it do its thing
Read full review No comparison. I never could get the Cisco product to function as it should in the trial and their support was poor.
Read full review Return on Investment Being a non-profit the cost is a bit higher than some competitors so our ROI takes a bit longer to recoup. I would really like to see better non-profit pricing. The ease of doing a report on someone cuts down on the IT man-hours to do website tracking for managers as we can do it from a central point whereas in the past (prior to Forcepoint/Websense) we would have to ghost their machine to look for activity as well as their local servers. Read full review prevent offensive content on our materials prevent innapropriate use of our materials by the staff Read full review ScreenShots