Securly Chromebook filtering now FREE

[fiza]

See Blog post here https://blog.securly.com/2017/06/16/free-chromebook-filtering-for-anyone-outside-north-america/

[caffrey]

Interesting, is anyone using securly at all ?

[fiza]

Interesting, is anyone using securly at all ?

@rogerdnixon is

[Ditto]

@RogerDixon, we're just looking at trying out the free version. Ar e there any tips/gotchas to look out for before I dive in?

[fiza]

@RogerDixon, we're just looking at trying out the free version. Ar e there any tips/gotchas to look out for before I dive in?

I think you meant to tag @rogerdnixon

@RogerDixon, we're just looking at trying out the free version. Ar e there any tips/gotchas to look out for before I dive in?

[rogerdnixon]

@RogerDixon, we're just looking at trying out the free version. Ar e there any tips/gotchas to look out for before I dive in?

 

We use the full product - so its filtering for everything - byod/PCs and ChromeOS - I've done two blogs on the product:

https://wpsit.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/securly-web-filtering-some-deployment.html

https://wpsit.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/automate-securly-guardians-upload-from.html

Link to the best practice guides:

https://support.securly.com/hc/en-us/articles/217632758-Best-Practices-Guides

 

A lot of the stuff in the blogs relates to the full product and some of my initial issues (like the google.ie thing) have been fixed. The ChromeOS deployment is really just pushing the extension and making sure you lock down your devices as in the best practice guide. Pretty quick and simple to deploy. If you are a full G Suite setup - I'd recommend the full product - the parental portal is very good and is a hit with our parents. We use it alongside a Virgin Media leased line and ClearOS (free community edition) based firewall/router VMs - removes the need for costly onsite filtering appliances while having very granualar filtering and reporting.

[PrimaryNetMan]

We use it alongside a Virgin Media leased line and ClearOS (free community edition) based firewall/router VMs - removes the need for costly onsite filtering appliances while having very granualar filtering and reporting.

 

How do you find not being able to pull off custom reports though? Currently trialling the full version as the Free edition for Chromebooks is a prefect fit but as good as the on screen reporting per user isn't ideal and really need some kind of whole use export here.

[rogerdnixon]

How do you find not being able to pull off custom reports though? Currently trialling the full version as the Free edition for Chromebooks is a prefect fit but as good as the on screen reporting per user isn't ideal and really need some kind of whole use export here.

 

I've not used the free offering so I don't know what the reporting looks like on that. For the alerts (Filtering + Auditor) I set up a group which is where all the alerts go and have members of the safeguarding team as members - so they get a digest every 25 alerts. I've also setup members of the safeguarding team as a group of staff users (not sure if this is a thing on the free one). This means they can login and run searches for activity and pull up browsing/search history for student users. I've never had a need for a "whole use" export - but you can always submit a feature request if you want some other form of report. With a Sheets script you could probably pull all the alert emails into a Sheet and do stuff with it if you wanted to.

 

What we have found nice is that you can deligate most stuff away from IT Support (so we just block/allow the occasional thing) and the interface is simple enough for the safeguarding people to do their stuff without having any real training.

[mavhc]

https://blog.securly.com/2017/07/15/chromebook-filtering-free-for-everyone/ is the new url