Anyone doing a CensorNet Vs iboss comparison? (or similar)

[IanHamilton]

Just starting to look at this and would be happy to share thoughts with others and any trial information.

[jamesrhart]

We've got a Cesornet WebEx on Thursday, saw both at BETT but Censornet *seemed* to be more capable, but that may be down to the people doing the demos.

[Shadow_Walker]

We use censornet here. It is very good and the support is brilliant

[gtg93]

We use censornet at most of our sites... Really good, easy to use but the main thing for an item like that is their support IMO. And censornet's I can't fault. Never waiting any longer than a couple of minutes to speak to someone on live chat and they're more than happy to remote straight in and deal with the problem... Most things are sorted within 20 minutes. Staff are very patient and friendly too... A couple of times i've jumped the gun and called support and it's been something I've done wrong and they're not bothered in the slightest.

 

Would definitely recommend. They also offer a 30 day free trial I believe - nice and easy to install and configure too.

Edited February 3, 2016 by gtg93

[trekmad]

We have used iBOSS since June last year after moving away from Smoothwall and can highly recommend it. Our install was carried out by Rivanet and we were there first customer for iBOSS after almost 5 years of them supplying us with Smoothwall. I have heard from Rivanet since and they have successfully migrated over 20 schools from Smoothwall to iBOSS.

 

The installation was easy and the removal of proxies made things so much easier to manage. We discovered that after we implemented iBOSS a lot of the rules we had in place on the smoothwall were not working as they should. We only had a couple of teething issues and these are quickly fixed by iBOSS support which has UK time support and US time support.

 

If a site has been accidentally blocked a student can fill out a request for us to review the site and we can easily add it to an allow list.

 

Please feel free to PM me if you have any specific queries.

 

Trekmad

[TimStannard]

I'm looking after IT at a couple of schools also migrated from Smoothwall (after probably 15 years) to iboss by RivaNet. So far, so good, but could do with some manuals!

[IanHamilton]

Hi Tim

Thanks for the info. Any idea why the move to iboss?

Ian

[mikeyd101]

Were iBoss here for the last year or so. It's been Ok but not without faults. Part of our problem is that we don't directly have access/control to iBoss box only access to filter control options for our district, it is part of our education service center (ESC) contract, who provide support for surrounding districts.

 

No 1 problem: Hot spot shield, the kids found they could get around the filter by using HSS, even tho iBoss had a specific setting for HSS it didn't work. They upgraded the version of IBoss and everything worked as expected and no more HSS.

 

No2. problem: outgoing mail filter, we are currently having an issue with outgoing mail not being allowed to be sent to certain domains. again ESC problem after they made some changes, one of those changes was upgrading iBoss. ESC are currently talking to level 2 iBoss support to try and get this resolved.

 

I'm sure our current issue will get resolved, but i guess our biggest problem is not having direct hardware control, and having to get ESC involved when we find problems seems to slow down the whole issue resolution. iBoss as a product seems pretty good and does all our filtering needs.

[Eappariello]

I'm looking after IT at a couple of schools also migrated from Smoothwall (after probably 15 years) to iboss by RivaNet. So far, so good, but could do with some manuals!

@TimStannard - As a iboss customer you can register at https://support.iboss.com/index.php?/Enterprise/Base/UserRegistration/Register

Once your in, search for "manuals" where you will find PDF's for the SWG, FireSphere, CISO dashbaord, IPS, and other threat defense features.

Let me know if you have any problems getting what you need..

[Meldrew]

We use censornet at most of our sites... Really good, easy to use but the main thing for an item like that is their support IMO. And censornet's I can't fault. Never waiting any longer than a couple of minutes to speak to someone on live chat and they're more than happy to remote straight in and deal with the problem... Most things are sorted within 20 minutes. Staff are very patient and friendly too... A couple of times i've jumped the gun and called support and it's been something I've done wrong and they're not bothered in the slightest.

 

Would definitely recommend. They also offer a 30 day free trial I believe - nice and easy to install and configure too.

 

+1 for censornet. We use it here and for a number of primary schools. Works a treat and as already mentioned, the support is excellent.

 

Meldrew.