TrustRadius Insights
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway has proven to be a valuable tool for organizations in various departments, ensuring secure browsing of the …
Overview
What is Forcepoint SWG?
The Forcepoint ONE Secure Web Gateway (SWG) is one of the three foundational gateways of the Forcepoint ONE all-in-one cloud platform. Forcepoint ONE SWG monitors and controlsany interaction with any website, including blocking access to websites based on category and…
Recent Reviews
Awards
Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards
Product Demos
Mac OS Endpoint Installation | Forcepoint Web Security Cloud
YouTube
Product Details
- About
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Forcepoint SWG?
The Forcepoint ONE Secure Web Gateway (SWG) is one of the three foundational gateways of the Forcepoint ONE all-in-one cloud platform. Forcepoint ONE SWG monitors and controlsany interaction with any website, including blocking access to websites based on category and risk score, blocking download of malware, blocking upload of sensitive data to personal filesharing accounts, detecting shadow IT, and optionally providingRemote Browser Isolation (RBI) with Content Disarm andReconstruction (CDR).
Forcepoint SWG Features
- Supported: Shadow IT discovery and risk ranking
- Supported: Cloud Application Control and full CASB upgrade
- Supported: Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
- Supported: Cloud Sandbox
Forcepoint SWG Video
Forcepoint Web Security Cloud Features
Forcepoint SWG Competitors
Forcepoint SWG Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
The Forcepoint ONE Secure Web Gateway (SWG) is one of the three foundational gateways of the Forcepoint ONE all-in-one cloud platform. Forcepoint ONE SWG monitors and controlsany interaction with any website, including blocking access to websites based on category and risk score, blocking download of malware, blocking upload of sensitive data to personal filesharing accounts, detecting shadow IT, and optionally providingRemote Browser Isolation (RBI) with Content Disarm andReconstruction (CDR).
Zscaler Internet Access and Netskope Public Cloud Security are common alternatives for Forcepoint SWG.
The most common users of Forcepoint SWG are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(137)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway has proven to be a valuable tool for organizations in various departments, ensuring secure browsing of the internet and addressing a range of security concerns. Users have reported that the application effectively blocks malicious threats while allowing users to browse the internet, providing an effective layer of security. This has helped organizations protect their computers and laptops from potential threats, giving IT departments peace of mind.
Additionally, the software has been instrumental in managing productivity, as it enables different departments to access specific categories of websites and allows managers to review internet activity. HR teams have found value in the user site visit data managed by Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway, which has proven helpful in certain cases. Moreover, the ability to quickly generate standard reports from the report catalog has made it easier for organizations to monitor web traffic and measure internet usage.
In public-sector organizations, the software ensures that users and staff are accessing websites aligned with mission goals. Libraries have leveraged its functionality to enable filtering of staff and patron internet usage, meeting requirements for CIPA compliance and qualifying for E-Rate funding.
Customers have also praised Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway's scalability and ease of deployment across multiple locations. The granular delegation of administration via active directory has allowed local departments to implement their own rule sets, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness.
Overall, customers have found this product to be a reliable solution for securing web traffic, preventing threats, managing productivity, and ensuring compliance with organizational policies.
Helpful and Clear Help Articles: Reviewers have praised the clear and helpful help articles provided by Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway. These articles were found to be a valuable resource in understanding and utilizing the software effectively, with some users mentioning that they served as a comprehensive reference point for various tasks and functionalities. The availability of these detailed and informative articles not only contributed to a smoother learning curve but also helped troubleshoot issues independently, reducing the reliance on customer service support.
Time-saving Feature: Users appreciate the time-saving aspect of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway's clear and easily accessible help articles. With these resources readily available, reviewers mentioned being able to find answers to their questions quickly, allowing them to continue working without interruptions. This feature has been particularly useful in minimizing downtime caused by seeking support from customer service or navigating complex user manuals.
Commitment to Customer Satisfaction: The inclusion of clear help articles demonstrates Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway's commitment to customer satisfaction. Reviewers highlighted how this comprehensive resource eliminates unnecessary back-and-forth communication with customer support, as it provides extensive information upfront. By offering detailed guidance through these articles, Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway ensures users have access to reliable self-help options, enhancing overall user experience.
-
Poor User Interface: Multiple users have expressed frustration with the confusing and non-user-friendly interface of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway, making it difficult to navigate and causing difficulties during installation.
-
Limited Configuration Options: Some users feel that the software lacks flexibility in defining usage, as the options for configuring policies and exceptions are limited compared to other available options in the market.
-
Slow Support Response Times: Users have reported slower support response times compared to other vendors, with issues taking 3 to 5 days to resolve, indicating a need for more efficient and responsive customer support from Forcepoint.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-25 of 52)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
July 13, 2022
Protects the organization
Forcepoint Web Security is being used across the whole organization. It helps us solve problems if we need to restrict users from gaining access to the internet sites so that they don't click or browse sites that contain malicious links which would affect the entire organization. We use web security as a hybrid module [that] allows us to block access even when the user is outside of the organization.
- It can be integrated with the DLP module
- Hybrid capabilities
- Can be integrated with Forcepoint AMD for sandboxing
- Helps us to restrict access of unwanted sites
- The hybrid agent should get updated automatically
- Some sites are not proxy friendly, which causes issues
- Time taken for the policy to sync in cloud
November 30, 2021
Decent product with poor support
Used to help prevent users from accessing malicious sites and sites considered counterproductive to work.
- Quota Time.
- Somewhat easy redirection of web traffic.
- Enforcement is inconsistent at times.
- Seems to cause connection timeouts with certain websites.
- Very poor product support.
October 18, 2021
Meets requirements but in our experience does not lend itself well to remote workers
Forcepoint Web Security is used as the secure web gateway across our entire organization. It is used to provide access to the Internet securely, performing SSL inspection of websites, applying real-time web page analysis, and blocking access to dangerous sites. It is also used to enforce organizational policy with regard to what sites can and cannot be accessed, which is important for us as a public-sector organization.
- Forcepoint Web Security met our requirements for a scalable on-premises secure web gateway solution.
- Forcepoint Web Security met our requirements for providing flexible policy assignments for users.
- Our largest challenge with Forcepoint Web Security is the difficulty of performing version upgrades.
October 15, 2021
Forcepoint Web Security: Content security for SMB, which is good enough for even large enterprises
We had too many issues concerning employees' productivity, wasting precious bandwidth and time, and then above all, security concerns like malware entering into our infra from infected websites, phishing attacks, targeted attacks, or just about anything from the cyber threat perspective. We had a squid proxy, but it [could not] match up with the changing times. We started deploying [Forcepoint Web Security] location-wise and [could] cover 100,000 employees in around 1.5 years, including the roaming client. The ACE engine on which [Forcepoint Web Security] runs really helped us in identifying the real threats, and with their hybrid cloud, we were able to test the best of both cloud and on-premises models. We also started the SSL interception on the boxes, which worked fine but brought down the performance of the boxes significantly, and would suggest [doing] SSLi on [a] dedicated solution. The DLP integration also worked well for both network and endpoint. With SSLi, DLP really gave us [an] inside view of what data is getting exfiltrated.
- Full SASE suite for threat and data security
- Robust ACE engine
- DLP integration
- Sandboxing
- Control and visibility for non-web protocol
- Application visibility and CASB
September 26, 2021
Extend content and threat protection to off-premises EUC
We are currently utilizing Forcepoint Web Security to provide proxy and content filtering services to end-user compute devices on our corporate network. The solution is deployed across all corporate managed devices and managed centrally by the IT team to enforce acceptable usage policies and protect devices from other malicious web content.
- Policy enforcement
- Content filtering
- Threat detection
- Mobile device protection
- Failover capability
- Vendor support
Forcepoint Web Security is being used across the whole organization on our servers and our PCs, including laptops. We use it to filter websites and protect us from accessing URLs that may be harmful. It addresses the need to have protection on our devices, even when users are out of the office.
- 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.
- Forcepoint Web Security can be improved by making the setup less bloated. We have two proxy servers clustered together for each environment, and we currently have environments for our campus, server, DMZ, and external networks. The setup and maintenance of the application can be cumbersome.
- Updating the agent needs to be implemented better. Instead of having to create and push out updates for the agents, there should be a way agents can get software updates directly from Forcepoint Web Security.
- Accessing the web content gateway to make changes is also not as streamlined as I would like and it should be improved.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Earlier we were using the URL filtering from other Firewall vendors for our web security but we were so many challenges with that as it had so many categorization issues. Sports sites were getting blocked in the Movies category and some unwanted URLs were not getting blocked. Our users were facing many problems in their daily tasks. Then we decided to go ahead with Forcepoint Web Security and trust me it was life-changing decision for our infra. First, it got installed in our Data Center on-premises and their categorization is just perfect. After implementing it, we got our web security covered and users didn't face any issues after that.
- Categorization
- Real-time security updates for threat protection
- It has a centralized granular policy controls
- Content Filtering
- Customer Support
- Scalability and throughput
- Documentation availability
- Pricing should be bit lower
December 28, 2020
Reassured Cybersecurity
Forcepoint Web Security works to help protect and control end-user web access all while working to protect against cyber threats. Various rules and filters were implemented to identify potentially malicious and suspicious sites. DLP events also trigger and alert the organizations of suspicious and potentially malicious actions taken by an employee.
- Forcepoint DLP alerts of potential data security issues with data leaving the organization.
- Forcepoint web filtering also protected against users navigating to malicious sites.
- Endpoint solution supports logging and monitoring to alert security control center.
- Fine tuning is required for various DLP flags.
- False positives require deep-dive investigations so staffing and timing are required for research.
- Web filtering not always accurate and additional tuning needed for categorization.
December 10, 2020
Forcepoint killed 'em all!
We deployed the solution all across the whole organization. We have about 30 WCGs and 20 locations using cloud proxy. Forcepoint Endpoint helped us to protect computer and laptops from threats.
We set up a hierarchy inside Forcepoint Security Manager, to grant access of each defined location/company to the respective IT department.
We set up a hierarchy inside Forcepoint Security Manager, to grant access of each defined location/company to the respective IT department.
- URL filtering.
- Scalability of the management.
- Easy way to update endpoints.
- Middle East area (where Government blocks traffic to your local PoP).
- China area (where you don't have local PoP so it's impossible to point to cloud proxy out of China, because traffic hits the Great Firewall and traffic is sometimes blocked for secured connections).
- Support expertise.
December 03, 2020
Excellent threat protection and Productivity monitoring with now in house overheads.
In use by the whole organization, provides extra layer of security also provides content blocking as well as time based access to certain sites to increase productivity.
- Blocks malicious sites.
- Allows restriction complete or by time to sites such as social media.
- Provides keyword content and category blocking of sites.
- Provides extensive reporting for browsing and security alerts.
- Ability to temporarily disable the proxy.
- More flexible client deployment options.
- Web chat support.
December 02, 2020
May the FORCEpoint be with You
Forcepoint is being used to inspect web content which helps to prevent users from accessing inappropriate websites and security risks while browsing the internet. We also use it on our Cloud infrastructure for behavioral and analytics and data loss prevention. It solves many problems for our organization in terms of keeping things secure.
- DLP
- Analytics
- Email Security
- Better UI
- Possibly better documentation
November 24, 2020
Forcepoint Web Security offers comfort and security
I have 8 years experience as a Forcepoint Web Security customer and I am very happy with it. We have a small IT department and as the IT Manager, Forcepoint allows me to rest at ease as the application does all the work. I really enjoy the fact that it is a cloud-based application, not an appliance. I can quickly run standard reports from the report catalog. I feel a great sense of security knowing my users can browse the internet while Forcepoint blocks malicious threats. This is a inexpensive, but very effective, layer I use for my company's security. I look forward to many more years using Forcepoint Web Security.
- Advanced threat protection
- Set it and forget it
- Any user, any device, any location
- Change in web content control happens quickly
- None I can think of
November 08, 2020
Forcepoint: Great results easily implemented.
We have Forcepoint web security deployed across the whole organization, worldwide with over 350 active endpoints. It provides a very effective defense against everything malicious the web has to offer. Also, it provides us with critical metrics of what types of sites users are visiting and for how long it also enables us to do content and keyword blocking of sites and time-based locking of common sites, eg. social media, this can be achieved very granularly via Active Directory integration.
- Blocks malicious and compromised websites.
- Provides a raft of customizable detailed metrics.
- Provides very easy to implement content filtering of which there is a lot of default framework ready to go.
- The endpoint software at times can be a little glitchy.
- Would be good to be able to temporarily disable the filter via the client for troubleshooting and admin purposes.
- Would be good to be able to manually set a Geo location for better response.
October 13, 2020
Forcepoint Web Security - The Only Choice
Used across the whole organization as the sole web filtering platform. Allows us the peace of mind in insuring that our users only access approved web categories and that they remain safe when browsing the internet whilst on the corporate network.<br>Forcepoint web filtering policies allow us the flexibility needed to tailor the end users experience according to company policy.<br>
- Web category filtering.
- Governance and compliance.
- Investigative reporting.
- Real time monitoring on the cloud platform would be good to have.
My Systems Administrator and I use ForcePoint Web Security daily. We use it for monitoring and filtering web usage company-wide. And that is exactly the business problem it addresses. Ensuring that hundreds of users are safely and responsibly using the web. Its dashboard and reports alert us to problems before they get out of hand.
- It gives us a high-level snapshot of what are users are doing online.
- It allows us to have a generous Acceptable Use Policy because we know that abuses will be easy to spot.
- It gives us a way to allow temporary access to otherwise blocked sites.
- Its tools for creating policies and exceptions is confusing in certain areas.
- Some of its online help topics don't provide as much detail as we would like.
April 14, 2020
Forcepoint helps our SOC be proactive
Forcepoint Web Security is used across the enterprise as a web proxy and DLP for a business unit. We are in the process of deploying the Hybrid to our company. We have received excellent help in this endeavor and may start using the DLP option after the POC. We look forward to continuing to work with Forcepoint.
- Block Malicious Sites
- DLP
- Ease of Use
- Cloud based could use more granularity
- Easier backend access
- Cloud HA
January 23, 2020
ForcePoint Web Security: Solid, but not great
We currently use ForcePoint Web Security across the entire organization. It serves the dual role of web filtering and data loss prevention.
- Allows content filtering.
- Guards against potential threats.
- Administrative overhead.
- Time to resolve issues with support.
January 23, 2020
Overall a good solid product.
We primarily use it as a web filtering tool across the whole organization. We have different policies in place for our different business units. Its primary use is to protect us from malware.
- Web filtering works well
- Hybrid client has no issues
- O365 filtering was different but improving
- FTP filtering is difficult
We are a partner company of Forcepoint and are supporting many clients across globe (mainly web, email and DLP).
- Forcepoint Category Database is always updated based on content available on the web rather than another competitor.
- Content scanning engine which provides real time content scanning/categorization is another feature to prevent malicious activity.
- I worked on versions 7.6, 8.2 and 8.5.3. But in latest version Forcepoint enables most features as default which which was optional in older versions.
January 22, 2020
Quick analysis and access list for the small/medium environment.
We use Forcepoint Web Security for web filtering only. We use it across our entire organization. This allows us to quickly set up standardized accesses to different levels of employees. With it's real-time monitoring features Forcepoint Web Security also allows us to easily identify sites that are being blocked and which ones are being allowed. Using that information, I can then evaluate user access and adjust it.
- The real-time monitoring tool allows for quick analysis of users traffic.
- Exceptions, makes allowing one-off accesses easy and allows for notes.
- Command-line functionality seems limited and not very user friendly.
- Online documentation to assist in solving errors quickly isn't easy to find what your looking for or isn't relevant to your problem.
January 22, 2020
Forcepoint Web Security: The One to Beat
Forcepoint Web Security is used across the entire organization to limit where particular users can go on the web and protect the corporation from malicious websites, and control loss of company data.
Forcepoint is especially critical in worker productivity as reports can be run against users and departments on internet usage. We especially like that the threat database and site categorization is constantly being updated throughout the day.
Forcepoint is especially critical in worker productivity as reports can be run against users and departments on internet usage. We especially like that the threat database and site categorization is constantly being updated throughout the day.
- Limit access to sites by category
- Block malicious content
- Easier software upgrades
- Cloud offering for management of content gateway/on premise infrastructure
January 21, 2020
Forcepoint protects our organization from malicious sites and allows us to institute our ISSP.
Forcepoint Web Security is used across our organization to protect our Internet access.
- Ease of Use
- Ease to Manage
- A bit complicated to setup
- Too many server pieces to integrate
January 10, 2020
Forcepoint Web is easy to use in a single pane of glass view.
Forcepoint Web Security is being used for our whole organization. This helps us protect our company by filtering what websites we allow our employees to access.
- Web filtering
- Stability
- Web filtering
- SSL decryption
January 10, 2020
Forcepoint Web Security Review
We use Forcepoint Web Security to monitor web traffic across the majority of the organization. It allows us to view usage trends, block malicious sites, and track user behavior that may or may not be malicious. We use the agent-based version and its security has been extremely beneficial in a number of areas to improve visibility and investigate.
- Blocking unwanted websites
- Presentation of data for reports
- Product support after implementation
- Navigation of primary portal
This is used across our whole organization. It's primary purpose is to restrict access to sites that are deemed not secure, whether that be determined by us or automatically by the product itself.
- Globally block a site for the whole organization.
- Restrict social media access to specific groups across the organization.
- 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.