JANET Web Filtering Service

[RobJohnson]

Hi all,

 

I work for an FE college based in Kent and we currently use WebSense Web Filter for or internet filtering needs... having a look at out JANET subscription and it would appear we may be able to use that instead. Does anyone here use it? any feedback/thoughts gratefully received.

 

Rob

[nile_c]

Not sure of anyone who use it around here, no.

I do know that their solution is bought in from somewhere (not us, or websense actually )

 

It's worth finding out what exactly will be provided, such as the level of control you will get over the categories filtered, what reporting is available, how you might authenticate your users, how you will manage groups and whether they have implemented just URL lists or "proper" content filtering.

I'd never knowingly "pitch" to anyone, just giving you a few areas to poke your nose in and be sure everything remains A-Ok :-)

[ayoward]

As far as I am aware, JANET's filtering is provided by RM. I don't know exactly what they use, whether it's their own developed system, or they use some other appliance. I do know however that it has the IWF list applied.

[srochford]

Used to use it in my previous job (an FE College) and it is provided by RM. Essentially it provides a proxy server so you point your own proxy server at the Janet filter.

 

It's fairly basic - you can't do things like saying "this group has access to these sites but this group does not" - it's an all or nothing system.

 

We used it because it was free and there was no money for anything better.

 

Details are at JANET Web Filtering Service

[Roberto]

Hi all,

 

I work for an FE college based in Kent and we currently use WebSense Web Filter for or internet filtering needs... having a look at out JANET subscription and it would appear we may be able to use that instead. Does anyone here use it? any feedback/thoughts gratefully received.

 

Rob

 

IMO it's worthwhile, especially at the price but we've always stuck with Websense despite the cost. What I would say is that if you chose websense because you use all the advanced features then you'd be disappointed with the kind of service offered by this filter. If you just use it for basic filtering along the lines of "This site is either blocked for everyone or it's not blocked at all" then you'll probably find it more acceptable.

 

There are other choices out there between the two extremes, and some of them are very good. For example, while nile_c says they won't pitch smoothwall in this thread, I trust they won't mind me doing it slightly on their behalf: It's a good product, I've heard nothing but good things about it and it will be on my list to evaluate when we come to renew websense ourselves.

 

I don't want to knock the JANET service, especially considering the price it's being charged at, but in this day and age I think services with that level of control are more about ticking a box ("Yes, we DO provide a filtering service [tick]") than anything else.

[RobJohnson]

I think considering what we need out of our filtering the JANET service isn't something we are going to look at realistically. Thanks to Nile I've just finished a conversation with a chap at Smoothwall who is going to send me all the info on their products. Thanks for everyones feedback and thanks to Nile for putting me in contact with someone at Smoothwall. The only other product I think we may also consider finding out about is CensorNet, anyone have any feedback about that?

[gshaw]

We had it on for a few weeks when our IPCop \ Dansguardian box threw a wobbly... did the trick but the proxy had some issues with Windows Live which was annoying.

 

Since we tried Untangle we've been very happy with what it gives us for free so staying with that now

 

http://www.untangle.com/

[john]

The only other product I think we may also consider finding out about is CensorNet, anyone have any feedback about that?

 

I used to use the Censornet Free Edition at a local Primary School, it was ok but not a patch on Smoothwall so I moved them to Smoothwall nearly a year ago now and its much better for them, a much better package and generally the Internet seems better now despite the only thing changing being the Web Filter.