Lightspeed Vs Netsweeper

[TMBS]

Hi

 

Does anyone have experience of Lightspeed and Netsweeper cloud filtering? We're looking to change and our broadband provider offers both. I've had a quick demo and prefer the look/usability of Lightspeed but would appreciate feedback from those who have used either.

 

Thanks!

[synaesthesia]

Lightspeed, from extensive experience, is good from a usability point of view but must not be considered if you will be sharing it with other users if it's cloud hosted. Netsweeper is far more flexible regardless of where it's hosted but certainly more complicated.

[TMBS]

Lightspeed, from extensive experience, is good from a usability point of view but must not be considered if you will be sharing it with other users if it's cloud hosted. Netsweeper is far more flexible regardless of where it's hosted but certainly more complicated.

Can you clarify what you mean by not sharing it with others? And why not? Thanks!

[synaesthesia]

Because as Schools Broadband will testify, Lightspeed isn't capable of correctly scaling, so when there are multiple sites/schools all being filtered through the same cluster of Lightspeed boxes, you are sitting and waiting in queues for reports, plus that contention also means during busy periods it isn't capable of putting through the data quick enough ending up with users unable to access websites.

[TMBS]

Because as Schools Broadband will testify, Lightspeed isn't capable of correctly scaling, so when there are multiple sites/schools all being filtered through the same cluster of Lightspeed boxes, you are sitting and waiting in queues for reports, plus that contention also means during busy periods it isn't capable of putting through the data quick enough ending up with users unable to access websites.

I guess that's why they're moving to Netsweeper then!

 

Thanks for the info!

[TMBS]

Has anyone used Netsweeper with Chromebooks? Is it easy to set up?

[ADMaster]

I had lightspeed through my LEA about 2 years ago. They also have had issues with it scaling.

It also is not as granular on some settings. Some settings were global and had to be the same for all schools.

Some of of those may have changed, as this was 2 years ago.

 

I have no experience with Netsweeper.

[04garwoodd]

it's CRAP! Half the categories don't work, when it comes to websites requiring authentication Netsweeper falls over and applies default web filtering. We're having to add URLs in multiple lists daily, the web interface is extremely slow and the block pages don't show the URL which was blocked so we're spending hours trawling through logs attempting to find which URL to add to the list. Dog turd! Buy a Lightspeed Rocket onsite and you'll never look back! Can't wait to get shot of NS.