Item: FortiClient
Rating: 10
Author: Evan Jaffe

Overall Satisfaction with FortiClient

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our entire organization uses FortiClient. We have a large number of employees that either work remote, travel frequently, or otherwise work outside of our secure network that need access to private and proprietary files - FortiClient is the tool we use to seamlessly allow all authorized users access to our network. FortiClient addresses the issue of keeping all employees connected to the same network, no matter how geographically dispersed they are.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Virtually a one-click action connection to my work network while remote. I just enter my network username & Password, click connect, and I can access all the fileshares as if I were on-site.
Speed - I have used other virtual network clients in the past, and the speed while working remote with one of them (even on a high speed connection) was easily 10x slower than if I were physically on the network. FortiClient is different, where the speed degradation is on the magnitude of only 2-3x slower - A significant and noticeable difference compared to other clients on the market.
On MacOS, FortiClient has a little toolbar icon that gives me a status, as well as actions to quickly connect or disconnect from my work network. It is a small thing, but a super handy feature!

Cons

The main client UI feels a bit dated and clunky. Some of the interactions are not clearly called out or organized, making it hard to understand how to get under the hood quickly.
Sometimes FortiClient can be a memory hog and noticeably be a contributor to slower speeds while working on my computer. I sometimes have to disconnect, hard stop, and then restart and reconnect in order to resolve the memory issue.

Return on Investment

I have more flexibility in working remotely, knowing that I have a reliable and secure way of accessing files on my work network. This increased flexibility has led to better productivity, more freedom to work when and how I want, and confidence in knowing I can access what I need to when I need to.
Working with employees on the other side of the world, I have confidence in sharing my files with them by simply working on my local network. This increases collaboration, speed, and efficiency.

Likelihood to Recommend

FortiClient is really well suited for providing remote employees super quick access to a local network without needing much technical know-how. The virus scanning and web-blocking is also really great at making sure to keep the spam, ads, and other malicious web connections at bay. I have not run into any specific scenario that FortiClient has not been well suited - All of the scenarios in which I have used FortiClient have all functions really well for me.

Comments

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FortiClient is a great enterprise-level VPN Solution