Websense just makes sense.
June 06, 2014
Websense just makes sense.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Websense
Websense was implemented to protect the organization from external and internal internet abuse. It successfully cut down on desktop issues, prevented pop-ups and prevented internal issues of internet abuse. In the end it it gave the CEO and IT relief as the cost of the product more than paid for itself in reduced support of desktops. We used it across the whole organization as an internet proxy.
We test drove other products but they just did not compare in terms of reporting, ease of use and out of the box categories.
We test drove other products but they just did not compare in terms of reporting, ease of use and out of the box categories.
- We implemented time based internet use. At lunch hour non work related websites were free to use and other parts of the day employees had 1/2 hour to freely surf. Setting this up on Websense was a breeze and helped reduce initial complaints from end users during implementation.
- An added bonus of Websense was the ad/pop-up blocking. Not only did this save on bandwidth, but it also in the end drastically reduced the number of desktop issues we had from malware related internet surfing. Rebuilding or troubleshooting desktops ended up being a thing of the past.
- Maintenance of Websense was particularly easy. The pre-canned categories as well as the daily updates to the lists were accurate and rarely did we have to manually add websites to an allow list. This made administration of Websense straightforward and easy. In the end it just ran and ran with very minimal maintenance on our end.
- Initial install can be confusing. After I implemented it 3 or 4 times it was fairly straight forward.
- Having a planning tool for how many users and what size of server would be a plus. When we implemented it was kind of a best guess based on 3 different setups.
- Would be nice if they implemented a feature where if a user came to a page that was blocked (and they felt like it should be open) that they could click on a link which would generate an email or put into a report for administrators to review.
- No doubt it has an increase on employee efficiency as the web is no longer a place to waste time. I do not believe in totally locking it down but giving a time allowance is the best of both worlds.
- Decrease in internet traffic. With locked down video streaming, downloading and AD's being blocked our internet bills decreased.
- Once again the amount of time IT had to spend on fixing desktops dramatically reduced. As well if a user is not being interrupted then it also increases their work efficiency.
We looked at a couple of appliances. Our issue with the appliances were that if the appliance failed, the internet failed closed. With Websense you have the option for the internet to fail open or closed. Big Bonus!
Other vendors were no cheaper and a lot of them were running on a pre-canned appliance. Purchasing our own hardware allowed us to properly size it and gave us the option to increase performance down the road.
Other vendors were no cheaper and a lot of them were running on a pre-canned appliance. Purchasing our own hardware allowed us to properly size it and gave us the option to increase performance down the road.