ContentProtect vs. Untangle NG Firewall

If you are looking for something relatively inexpensive to lock down specific computers, it would be a useful tool. If the computers themselves aren't too locked down, implementation and management shouldn't be too difficult.

Incentivized

Midsized business is where I have used it. Have used it to connect to other Untangle boxes across town and in other countries with NO issues and works with MS Domains across these VPN connections. Probably less appropriate for small home networks or large businesses.

Incentivized

• The client is relatively light weight and doesn't impact other applications.
• The client isn't easily bypassed, so the user's are kept under restrictions.
• The configuration is relatively simple and easy to deploy.

Incentivized

• The firewall is easy to set up and manage.
• The open VPN while not as feature rich as some other options is rock solid and consistently needs nothing
• The web filter app is great, it's easy to block broad categories or specific things as well as white list whatever is needed.
• Support is responsive and accurate.

Incentivized

• Our primary policy is a restricted list, so that does as advertised. We had one location that had blocks based on categories (adult, illegal, etc). We continually had issues with sites getting completely blocked due to unrelated content. For example, Yahoo had a beer ad on the page, alcohol was blocked, so Yahoo became blocked for the period of time that ad was displayed. We had this happen multiple times and eventually switched to a different solution at that location.
• I've had issues with their cloud portal not working. I don't have to edit our configuration often, but on numerous occasions, i was unable to get the configuration page to load after login, sometimes for days. The platform just wasn't stable when I needed it to be.
• We run many of our remote rooms as frozen (after logoff they reset to the image). This works fine most times, but when content protect needs a configuration change pushed down, someone needs to go 'thaw' the computers, download the updated configuration, and re-'freeze' the computer. It would be nice if that information was just dynamic from the cloud and didn't need to be pulled down.
• The categorization used for policies is very limited and not flexible or easily customizable.
• I could never get the usage reporting to work.

Incentivized

• The UI could be a little flashier.
• Getting your license file moved from one firewall to another can be tough at times... but support is great if you need it.
• Ability to upload reports to a portal versus getting them emailed would be best (some reports can get 100+ Mb depending on all the bells and whistles).

Incentivized

Service renewal is in Feb 2021. We will be renewing!

Generally works well but seeing more and more bugs with the OpenVPN app.

Incentivized

The phone support reps are highly competent and native-English speakers. big plus vs some other vendors with difficult to understand or less knowledgable support engineers.

Incentivized

At the time ContentProtect was selected, Forcepoint (Websense at the time) didn't have an inexpensive or cloud type product. The same can be said with Cisco, at that time. Recently, we have reevaluated and are going to be transitioning to Forcepoint's mobile client and removing ContentProtect from our environment. The cost is actually now less and we will be able to get both more dynamic control and also give us more detailed reporting on the traffic from clients.

Incentivized

I could never come close with these two products to the level of functionality and security I have with Untangle. Simply put, there is absolutely no contest. In addition, the cost of these other solutions was many thousands more than the academic cost for Untangle. Many times have I experienced threats and inappropriate content passing through these other products. All of that was stopped the moment I implemented Untangle, even before I started to customize the settings.

Incentivized

• It was a relatively inexpensive and simple solution when we needed one relatively quickly, which is a positive. The inexpensive price has kept it in the environment.
• The lack of reliable reporting has lead to the need for an alternate monitoring solution in a few cases. Network level reporting was used, which is a separate expense, configuration.
• Time has been lost waiting on the portal and then troubleshooting support tickets when sites that shouldn't have been blocked have been blocked. It has resulted in changes for locations that needed dynamic category filtering as opposed to a finite list.
• The blocking of sites based on add traffic or sub-sites (rather than just blocking that content like other solutions) has resulted in downtime during classes when those sites were listed in the lesson plan and had previously worked.

Incentivized

• Easy setup and implementation made ROI easy to achieve. An Untangle HA solution is 1/2-1/3 the cost of a comparable Cisco/Checkpoint/Palo Alto solution.
• non-business internet usage has nearly ground to a halt.
• SD-WAN integration made it easy to connect branch offices quickly without complicated IPSEC configuration.

Incentivized