Securus alternative

[glennw]

Currently have in school on evaluation the Securus PC misuse software .A very comprehensive and powerful tool .

Anyone using this , or even more importantly can anyone suggest a cheaper alternative .The 7k quoted for Securus is way out of my league

[plexer]

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?nam...h&mode=results

Ben

[Geoff]

You can't link to search results plexer, just link the individual posts/threads.

[plexer]

hmm ok well in that case search for securus glen it's been done several times.

Ben

[plexer]

How about:

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?nam...ywords=securus

Ben

[Richie_OLSJ]

We had a trial of Securus and thought it was an excellent piece of kit - except for the explorer error on logging off the client machines (although we have been told there is a fix for that).
The cost is the thing that's putting us off, so I'm toying with the idea of developing something simpler myself...
We have around 300-400 machines that the kids have access to, so to put securus on them all would cost us a fortune

[k-strider]

We use Securus,
I quite like it
Its quite a job trawling through it and working out what to process / hand on to teachers for punishment etc... good for catching those Web proxies.. it has a most common web sites visited too..
We actually bought it to cover our backs legally just so that we were being proactive in protecting the users...
I get some interesting screen grabs from it... you learn all about all the secret affairs etc hehe...
It’s also useful for finding things you want to look for, for example I added our unfiltered proxy so I could check it was just staff that were using it and not kids finding some way of changing the IE proxy
On the Licensing front the way the rep explained it to me was that the server keeps track of the number of clients we have about 200 Lics so it keeps tabs on the first 200 concurrent users anyone after that it doesn’t keep tabs on... we have it deployed on about 300 stations but I haven’t ever seen the client count above 200 on the server...
The server crashes occasionally.. but always when your browsing the console... so you know to go and restart it...

[Ric_]

@Richie_OLSJ: An cheaper alternative to Securus is definately something others would be interested in. I know that one of the biggest prohibitive factors for us was cost. Early releases of Securus also didn't enjoy working with Citrix which is also a must have feature but I believe that is sorted now.

[Ravening_Wolf]

I had a Securus unit in my previous post and found that the ~7K price tag was probably worth it in terms of backup in the event of a legal issue. Despite the obvious system abuse deterrent, we also found that it had a pastoral side - at least two students with serious personal problems were identified for professional help following analysis of their web browsing behaviours. In such a situation, 7K is cheap and easily justified.

The last time I spoke to one of the Securus reps, he did mention that there was a "home" version which schools could sell to parents for use on home PCs. Any such sales would carry a percentage kickback for the school which could be offset against the next years renewal costs. That might be worth looking into again also...