Microsoft Forefront (Discontinued Product) vs. Proofpoint Email Protection

In large deployments, I have found Microsoft Forefront to be very effective at combating the majority of threats faced by our users. It provides the base platform for catching threats that would otherwise threaten our users and their data. If you have an environment that is under constant malware threat, then a secondary program may be needed as required.

Incentivized

Well suited: Proofpoint does a pretty good job at protecting us from spam emails. I was able to block a lot of emails coming from SendGrid by blocking SendGrid emails with a custom spam filter. However, SendGrid has a lot of legit emails too so I was able to create another rule to allow those emails from certain people, then block the rest. That way business need was met but spam emails are blocked. Less Appropriate If you are trying to monitor internal to internal emails Proofpoint is probably a little over featured for that.

Incentivized

• SCEP is a light weight client which is minimally impactful on the user end.
• Forefront's management console provides excellent monitoring and reporting.
• Setup and configuration is very easy.

Incentivized

• Spam - catches these emails before hitting the inbox.
• Daily digest - provides users with a list of the emails that were blocked and allows them to choose to release them if they are legitimate emails.
• Ensures that emails coming into our organization is safe for our users and verifies the email is coming from stated senders email server.

Incentivized

• Malware detection is not quite 100%. We have to use a secondary program occasionally.
• On low ram and weak CPU systems scanning can freeze the machine.
• The same reporting tools that are on the console version, aren't on the client.

Incentivized

• Proofpoint could offer more frequent training opportunities to customers at all levels of expertise.
• Proofpoint can always continue to strive to keep its product a leader in the industry.
• Proofpoint's support site could be overhauled to provide a more logical flow.

Incentivized

Very robust and solid product in protecting our emails. The engineers who assisted with our implementation was very knowledgable and great to work with. Easy to use by end-users. Administration and management are also easy for IT. Great dashboard and reporting tools for business reviews.

There were no appliance errors or unplanned outages during five years of operation.

Incentivized

Most important thing is the performance of processing mails. Even in a complex environment the system keeps performing on a very high Level.

Incentivized

We use ProofPoint support quite often to fix issues and assist with setting up features and rules. Each time we have created a ticket, they have been very helpful and respectful. Each ticket has been treated with the appropriate SLA time and attention. We also enjoy the regular check-ins from the engineers when tickets are open but we get busy with other tasks.

Incentivized

The biggest advantage that MSF and SCEP provide over Norton is: One: Far less client overhead required. Both Norton and McAfee are highly intensive client side when in use. Two: We've had far better luck using the Microsoft system with its detection capabilities, versus the others. Three: It is tied right into the Microsoft updating system, which provides central updating capabilities of av/mal/windows updates.

Incentivized

We previously used halon anti-spam, which lasted us well until our organization really started to grow and it was not able to keep up with the amount of mail we were receiving. The support is also nothing compared to Proofpoint's professional services offering. Halon was also not able to have the complex rules that Proofpoint can offer.

Incentivized

You can add a lot of agents to your environment if you need them. And you can operate hardware appliances and virtual appliances in the same cluster.

Incentivized

• Less turnaround on virus based issues.
• Helps reduce malware issues over time.
• Can breed overconfidence in the system, so people don't always try a second tool.

Incentivized

• Having easy-to-reach backups of all employee emails has made Proofpoint worth it by itself. That plus the countless times that spam/malicious emails did not make it through to the intended person that could have potentially cost the organization a lot of money.

Incentivized