Likelihood to Recommend FortiGuard Web Filtering Service is well-suited for an organisation that is able to funnel all its Internet connectivity through one device, i.e., the office environment - or perhaps where WFH workers are using a remote desktop or VPN. It allows management/IT to minimise risk by blocking websites that may be harmful, as well as websites that may enable data leakage, or even are websites that people ought not to be visiting in the workplace.
Read full review In a large environment, this is the perfect system. If you do not have constant changes, it easily becomes a system you drop in place and rarely have to think about. Our units have been rock solid and have never experienced any unexpected downtime, and upgrades are just a couple button clicks to deploy, or roll back. For small offices, with minimal traffic this may be using a sledgehammer to put in a push pin. It will work great, but the devices is likely over engineered for small offices (<50 people). That being said, price-wise it's still a great solution when compared to competing products and being from Symantec, you know it's going to be around and support for the long term.
Read full review Pros FortiGuard Web Filtering Service effectively protects websites. There is no need to install the root certificate on all PCs inside the network. The database signature updates every hour, so we don't need to spend time updating the website to blacklist or whitelist. It can protect very well. Whereas, some traditional proxies can not do that. For example, others can not block Youtube or Facebook. It can also protect the search keyword, like in Youtube or other social media, Google, etc. Read full review Almost real time protection from all ongoing threats with their DLA inspection Great visibility into web filtering policies using the dashboards and reports No patching or downloads needed, immediate protection is provided as clients are always cloud connected Read full review Cons Some websites are classified as Meaningless content, especially links used in emails to unsubscribe from lists. Luckily FortiGuard Web Filtering Service is responsive about reclassifying those quickly. Read full review The admin interface would be better off not using Java Setting up SSL properly can be a bit challenging Could really use a better source for training, like a library of how-to videos Read full review Usability I really like the system, it's easy to use and mostly intuitive. I would have gone 10/10, but the management interface uses Java, and that seems to always make things a bit harder to start. Once everything is loaded and running, it's great - but it does require me to maintain a compatible version of Java on the machine I use to access the system, I'd be much happier with some kind of HTML5 interface. I also deducted 1 point for the functionality of the refer filter - it works as expected, but if the site isn't coded with the correct refer header, like Microsoft's site - then some page elements get stripped and pages only render about 98% correctly. I know that's not in Symantec's list of responsibilities, but having a filter that doesn't fully understand CDNs is worth the 1 point ding.
Read full review Support Rating Took a little longer for support to get our problem solved, but when the upper tier tech support was involved, we got excellent customer support.
Read full review I've had exactly 1 problem in 8 years, I contacted support via the customer portal, less than an hour later I found myself in a screen share with a support tech who not only fixed my configuration error, but also took the time to ask about my usage and offered some great tips on changes. It was just one support incident, but I was impressed by the speed of response to a non-critical issue as well as the depth of product knowledge the support engineer had.
Read full review Alternatives Considered We selected FortiGuard Web Filtering because it came in the service bundle with our FortiGate unit. After testing the service for a couple of months, we disabled the web filtering that was running on our client machines and have not looked back. It's been easy to manage, effective, and fast. There isn't much more you can ask for from a filtering solution.
Read full review Symantec WebFilter / Intelligence Services solution was a simple 1U appliance that does everything we need, compared to the
Forcepoint solution which required a virtual appliance, a database server, a log server, and a management server - the licensing costs alone make the Symantec WebFilter / Intelligence Services solution a clear winner. The
Forcepoint solution is really good, it just requires such a big footprint without delivering much beyond what the Symantec WebFilter / Intelligence Services solution does with a single unit.
Read full review Return on Investment We can be confident staff cannot inadvertantly or deliberately access websites that contain porn, or other non-safe for work content We can be confident staff cannot inadvertantly or deliberately access harmful and malicious websites We can be confident data leakage is minimised Read full review Boosts business productivity with having secured systems Globally available threat protection adhering to our own security policies User may sometime find it difficult to deal with - so there can be a feature to make it more user friendly in terms of user experience. That is a bit of negative we have seen. Read full review ScreenShots