Hi all, sorry to piggyback this post but I think my questions might fit in here. Our current filtering provider just informed me that they went out of business.
I too am looking at Smoothwall or Lightspeed for our (small) school. We are a mixed environment with about 60 Windows 7 devices, and handful of tablets and phones as well as a little over 100 Chromebooks. I have already reached out to both companies and am in the process of researching both options for our school.
First question is regarding a firewall, I know Lightspeed would require me to also purchase a firewall but Smoothwall has a firewall integrated that we can use. Is this true? What are the downsides of using the integrated firewall as opposed to a dedicated firewall?
I am also interested to find out if there is any alternative way of setting up filtering for Chromebooks, without using GADS and single sign on (we do not integrate our Google accounts with our AD accounts). With my current filter provider I had setup filtering groups and reporting based on IP ranges. Is this possible with either of these solutions? What (if any) are the downsides? Our Chromebooks do not go home with students.
Thanks in advance,
Mark
