What is a good web content filtering software package for a corporate environment?

C

Capt. Insano

Weaksauce
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Jun 14, 2006
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I work in an office of approx. 150 PC's and we are trying to implement a web content filtering software package and having a hard time choosing one that is reasonable in price and also offers the ability to filter streaming media, adult sites, etc.

I looked into WebSense but they cost way too much for our setup. Can you guys give me some ideas on what your company uses or any packages that you are familiar with? Thanks.
 
In a place that I use to work at they used SmartFilter Proxy. I have no idea what the cost is/was but I am sure it is not cheap. You could always use something like IPCop or M0n0wall. I have been using IPCop for about 3 weeks now and it is really stable.

Just a thought!

Good Luck
 
I am using a Sonicwall Pro 2040 with their Preimium Content Filter ($1500/yr) and thier GW av-ip ($700/yr)

It is not bad, but it is by no means perfect. I am often subiting changes to their list, and have a fairly large custom list beyond that.

No solution will be perfect, but all things considerd, Sonicwall is not bad.. For 150 clients, their smaller firewalls might not be quite enough.. I have about 300 clients on my 2040

==>Lazn
 
Microsoft ISA Server 2004. Cache/Proxy/Firewall Server. This is a good all-in-one solution.

I believe Cisco PIX also does content filtering, but I'm not too familiar with their appliances.
 
We also use Sonicwall firewalls with content filtering included. Also has anti-spyware, anti-virus and email filtering. Works very well.
 
If you want to go the open source route then you can transparently proxy through
Squid and Dan's Guardian (which runs on top of Squid).

Some of the techs I know who administer school networks have set this up as a webcontent filter. It will let you setup blacklists, greylists, and whitelists. You can also use a free blacklist such as URLBlacklist.com but I hear they have a lot of false positives.

I have used Sonicwalls service and was not impressed. As a previous poster said it is incomplete and I had to supplement it with my own entries. Plus in my case I couldn't buy a blanket license that covers all my 25+ Sonicwalls. At $1500 each I cannot justify the expense.
 
itr said:
I believe Cisco PIX also does content filtering, but I'm not too familiar with their appliances.
Click to expand...

The PIX and the ASA only do this in conjunction with Websense or N2H2.

You can use anything you want if the filtering software is setup in proxy or transparent-proxy mode, but as far as direct interaction with a filtering server, those are the two it currently supports. It cannot do any on-board filtering by itself unless you do it via an IP in an access list.
 
Another vote for Sonicwall. We use a CSM 2100 for content filtering, etc. GREAT.

Tried using Smart Filter. was kind of a pain, and wasnt THAT efficient.

Granted, neither of these were cheap, but it sure beats having employees waste their entire day on Ebay and Gmail!
 
Thank you all for the great suggestions. However, we already have a great Anti-Spam, Anti-Virus solution in place with a Watchguard firewall in place. Basically, what we are trying to do is filter web content for accessing certain web sites, streaming media, Torrent, IM's, etc. So basically a software solution of somesort like WebSense but cheaper that is able to sit at the Gateway and scan imcoming/outgoing traffic and filter according to a set of rules.
 
let's see... we use a combination of Lucent Brick firewall, Symantec Raptor Firewall, Secure Computing Sidewinder G2, Paros proxy...

crazy.
 
The last place I worked for used winproxy. If you have windows servers it's a decent option for the price.
 
Most Watchguard firewalls support conent filtering. I have several clients that have the small SOHO versions that have a content filter subscription as well.
 
I've used both SurfControl and Websense on large corporate networks (>1000 users) and of the two I'd say Websense is far better. It does a great job of both protocol level and site level filtering. The only problem is the cost, but if you are serious about filter, it is the way to go.
 
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