Securly

[mattysmith80]

Hi there... currently trialling Securly and keen to see other people’s thoughts.... I’m looking at it to replace our current web filter... it’s good I like it, but I’m kind of thinking to myself is it really a web filter or is it safeguarding software.... I mean web filtering can obviously be classed as safeguarding software but I feel it kind of sits between a traditional filter and safeguarding software...

 

Would welcome your thoughts, like I say I think it’s ok to be honest.. interested to see others thoughts..

[Brimstone]

Securly does both filtering of web sites, blocking of web access and reporting...?

[mattysmith80]

It does yes... it’s just a very different type of filter and possibly I’m looking too much into what it “doesn’t” filter... for example we block categories like freeware and software downloads, phishing and spam URLs, we block newly observed domains, parked domains,..... These aren’t available in Securly and it feels more geared around child safety type categories, which is fine, and I don’t know if I’m thinking too much about what’s not there if you know what I mean.. just a different way of doing things I suppose

[localzuk]

It is education focused filtering, rather than security focused filtering I think is what you mean.

 

We only use it on Chromebooks, and I don't think we'd use it on a Windows network, a more robust security solution is needed really for that.

[mattysmith80]

Yeh think that’s what I’m struggling with... I’ve got it out in the wild now so will see how it plays out over time

[paulkerton]

Hi there... currently trialling Securly and keen to see other people’s thoughts.... I’m looking at it to replace our current web filter... it’s good I like it, but I’m kind of thinking to myself is it really a web filter or is it safeguarding software.... I mean web filtering can obviously be classed as safeguarding software but I feel it kind of sits between a traditional filter and safeguarding software...

 

Would welcome your thoughts, like I say I think it’s ok to be honest.. interested to see others thoughts..

 

It's both, which for me, is kind of the point of filtering in education. It should be capable of both too.

[Alis_Klar]

I signed up for Securly to cover our 80 DfE Chromebooks at home. The filtering works as a add-on to Chrome so you have to make sure you lock down your Chromebooks to stop it deing disabled. I havn't tried SmartPAC as we only use it on our Chromebooks and they don't need that.

 

The reporting is very easy to use but somewhat "sparce". If you allow Gmail then there is an "Auditor" which uses AI to detect distress etc.

 

You can pay more for a human to monitor logs as well as the AI.

 

I found the alert notification groups harder to setup than they should have been but other wise setup if easy and fast if you need to roll out quick for DfE Chromebooks.

[rogerdnixon]

We use Securly across our Trust. All flavors - Chrome extension, DNS and SmartPAC. Works great, on and off site filtering on all devices, good delegation across the Trust. Just works really.