Forcepoint SWG Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services Reviews & Insights

Score9.7 out of 10

137 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Helpful and Clear Help Articles: Reviewers have praised the clear and helpful help articles provided by Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway. These articles were found to be a valuable resource in understanding and utilizing the software effectively, with some users mentioning that they served as a comprehensive reference point for various tasks and functionalities. The availability of these detailed and informative articles not only contributed to a smoother learning curve but also helped troubleshoot issues independently, reducing the reliance on customer service support.

Time-saving Feature: Users appreciate the time-saving aspect of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway's clear and easily accessible help articles. With these resources readily available, reviewers mentioned being able to find answers to their questions quickly, allowing them to continue working without interruptions. This feature has been particularly useful in minimizing downtime caused by seeking support from customer service or navigating complex user manuals.

Commitment to Customer Satisfaction: The inclusion of clear help articles demonstrates Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway's commitment to customer satisfaction. Reviewers highlighted how this comprehensive resource eliminates unnecessary back-and-forth communication with customer support, as it provides extensive information upfront. By offering detailed guidance through these articles, Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway ensures users have access to reliable self-help options, enhancing overall user experience.

Forcepoint SWG Reviews

10 Reviews

Professional, Scientific, and Technical ServicesLaw Practice1Information Technology & Services8Computer & Network Security1

Forcepoint Web Security: Content security for SMB, which is good enough for even large enterprises

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

October 15, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We had too many issues concerning employees' productivity, wasting precious bandwidth and time, and then above all, security concerns like malware entering into our infra from infected websites, phishing attacks, targeted attacks, or just about anything from the cyber threat perspective. We had a squid proxy, but it [could not] match up with the changing times. We started deploying [Forcepoint Web Security] location-wise and [could] cover 100,000 employees in around 1.5 years, including the roaming client. The ACE engine on which [Forcepoint Web Security] runs really helped us in identifying the real threats, and with their hybrid cloud, we were able to test the best of both cloud and on-premises models. We also started the SSL interception on the boxes, which worked fine but brought down the performance of the boxes significantly, and would suggest [doing] SSLi on [a] dedicated solution. The DLP integration also worked well for both network and endpoint. With SSLi, DLP really gave us [an] inside view of what data is getting exfiltrated.

Pros

Full SASE suite for threat and data security
Robust ACE engine
DLP integration
Sandboxing

Cons

Control and visibility for non-web protocol
Application visibility and CASB

Likelihood to Recommend

If you are looking for web security with DLP, it works well, but if you are more interested in application-level visibility and granular control and CASB integration, then it has some scope to improve. For roaming users, DNS and non-web protocol control [are] not of industry standard.

Verified User

General Manager in Information Technology (Information Technology & Services company, 10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

Protects the organization

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

September 14, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Forcepoint Web Security is being used across the whole organization. It helps us solve problems if we need to restrict users from gaining access to the internet sites so that they don't click or browse sites that contain malicious links which would affect the entire organization. We use web security as a hybrid module [that] allows us to block access even when the user is outside of the organization.

Pros

It can be integrated with the DLP module
Hybrid capabilities
Can be integrated with Forcepoint AMD for sandboxing
Helps us to restrict access of unwanted sites

Cons

The hybrid agent should get updated automatically
Some sites are not proxy friendly, which causes issues
Time taken for the policy to sync in cloud

Likelihood to Recommend

Forcepoint Web Security is well suited because it provides on-premises as well as cloud functionality, so instead of fully migrating to cloud we can have a few users on on-prem and few on cloud. It gets easy to identify which users should be on cloud or on-prem. It is always better to use a generic policy for everyone, otherwise it can cause issues while creating exceptions. The scenario where it is less appropriate is when there is a function where the agent can automatically get updated but when we do that, the agent does not get updated properly, which causes a lot of trouble as we need to uninstall the agent and then re-install it.

Verified User

Consultant in Information Technology (Information Technology & Services company, 10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

Forcepoint Web Security- The Industy leader in Content filtering and Security

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

May 26, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Earlier we were using the URL filtering from other Firewall vendors for our web security but we were so many challenges with that as it had so many categorization issues. Sports sites were getting blocked in the Movies category and some unwanted URLs were not getting blocked. Our users were facing many problems in their daily tasks. Then we decided to go ahead with Forcepoint Web Security and trust me it was life-changing decision for our infra. First, it got installed in our Data Center on-premises and their categorization is just perfect. After implementing it, we got our web security covered and users didn't face any issues after that.

Pros

Categorization
Real-time security updates for threat protection
It has a centralized granular policy controls
Content Filtering

Cons

Customer Support
Scalability and throughput
Documentation availability
Pricing should be bit lower

Likelihood to Recommend

Forcepoint Web Security is a suited solution for all the kinds of organizations who are accessing the web internet, be it small size, mid-size or larger organizations. Its content filtering feature is just awesome which is not available with other vendors. If you want to allow Sports category and block movie category on the same URL (youtube) then this kind of scenario can be achieved by Forcepoint Web Security. It has intuitive management and reporting and the largest intel database.

Chandan Singh Rathore

Senior Technical Consultant in Information Technology at iValue InfoSolutions Pvt. Ltd. (Information Technology & Services, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

View profile

Forcepoint is the best tool to secure all types of networks/environments.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

January 22, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are a partner company of Forcepoint and are supporting many clients across globe (mainly web, email and DLP).

Pros

Forcepoint Category Database is always updated based on content available on the web rather than another competitor.
Content scanning engine which provides real time content scanning/categorization is another feature to prevent malicious activity.

Cons

I worked on versions 7.6, 8.2 and 8.5.3. But in latest version Forcepoint enables most features as default which which was optional in older versions.

Likelihood to Recommend

Forcepoint Web Security is the perfect option to monitor all inbound traffic and prevent malicious/phishing activity.

Niket Gaurav

Cyber Security Specialist in Engineering at IBM India Pvt Ltd (Information Technology & Services, 10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

Forcepoint review

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

December 14, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The whole organization uses it. We use it to restrict access to certain website categories. Managers also review internet activity.

Pros

Reporting
Managing rules

Cons

Cannot restrict https sites.

Likelihood to Recommend

Overall, it is a good product and runs without much intervention after the initial setup and configuration. If you intend to block https sites, this product is not for you.

Scott Kemp

SeniorEngineer in Information Technology at Software Consulting Services (Information Technology & Services, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

Endpoint security web filtering software for security assurance

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

September 25, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Forcepoint web security is a great web firewall that blocks off any websites or anything considered remotely suspicious. It is being used across the organization to protect machines from malicious activity and going to websites that may be dangerous.

Pros

Web security.
Endpoint protection.

Cons

Better user interface.

Likelihood to Recommend

Forcepoint is a good firewall internally for all connections to different websites that might pose a risk based on a variety of aggregated statistics.

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering (Information Technology and Services company, 10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

Forcepoint offers one of the best web security solutions on the market today.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

July 1, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use FP Web Security at the whole organization, it provides a high level of security in the web browsing of users, decreasing the number of computers infected by malicious software, in addition to providing controlled access to resources that users require. It also helps us to comply with regulations regarding the protection of information from our customers and users.

Pros

It has a very good level of detection of malicious software which helps our equipment to remain protected.
It has very accurate DLP detection engines that help facilitate the implementation of this type of policy.
Realizes a categorization of the websites in a very adequate and fast way, allowing you to manage the access to multiple categories of sites for each user or group of users.
It has multiple forms of administration of web access, based on schedules, available bandwidth, whether the user is in the corporate network or not, etc.

Cons

Improve or enable the DLP integration for the cloud solution in a more transparent way.
Add integration options with MDM providers for filtering on mobile devices.

Likelihood to Recommend

In any scenario that requires a high level of security for web traffic, Forcepoint is a very good option. Perhaps if the need is just a simple web filtering there are other options. If the DLP protection for web traffic is a high requirement, then Forcepoint Web Security will be one of the best options.

Verified User

Manager in Engineering (Information Technology and Services company, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

Reseller

18 years of experience

Forcepoint Web Security is better than the competition thinks.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

June 21, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Currently Forcepoint Web Security is used to monitor and protect 50,000 users for a large state agency. This is used to keep our employees protected from emerging threats as well as controlling non business related web requests filtered to ensure safety and compliance.

Pros

Very good filtering and deep packet inspection for SSL
ICAP support for Data Loss Prevention
Protection of Web email Channels for loss.

Cons

Complex Management require full time
Better license model, too much like Cisco with multi licenses.

Likelihood to Recommend

Of all the proxy products I have tested Forcepoint is on top, better than Cisco Web or Blue Coat.

Alan matson

Sr. Network Security Engineer in Information Technology at Insight (Computer & Network Security, 201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

9 years of experience

Great Filter, Easy Reporting

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

March 30, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Websense Web Filter & Security to prevent users from accessing certain types of websites, set time quotas for certain types of sites such as shopping, prevent certain types of protocols and in general as a logging system to track how users are spending their time on the internet. It has been an extremely valuable IT & HR tool for our company.

Pros

It tracks user activity, which means our HR department has a tool to report on certain users' activities when their productivity vs. internet surfing habits are in question. The reports are pretty simple to create and view and the ability to export to Excel has been useful. The ability to automatically generate and email these reports on a schedule has been useful at times too.
The ability to set quotas, such as users are allowed to spend 30minutes per day on Facebook or 30minutes a day on shopping sites, which displays the quota for the user when they enter such a site, has been a valuable reminder of our company policies for such activity.
The ability to prevent certain types of protocols for certain groups of users, such as group xyz is not allowed on FTP sites, or only https, has allowed to consider and set security parameters for different groups of users.
The ability to easily override any group policy setting for a certain individual if an immediate need for something outside the box arises has been useful. If a certain user is temporarily filling in for another person on vacation and needs additional internet access with less restrictions, we just call out that user specifically in the software and apply a different policy, then easily remove that the following week.

Cons

While the reports are easy to generate, analyzing the data can be challenging. For example, it records every hit on a webpage, so for something like Facebook, every time the page refreshes itself or changes an ad etc. it records it. So, if a user goes to Facebook and actually clicks on two things to read, it could end up showing the had forty clicks, which makes it challenging to HR to determine where the line of "extreme usage" actually is based on these skewed reports.
We have had three times in 8 years where the software had a table that got corrupted that synchs data from AD, so the usernames were not available for reporting. We had to run reports for a while based on IP address, which could change frequently since we're DHCP like most companies, so the data in the reports were essentially useless during this period. Support helped us solve the issue, but each time it took about a week.
Support has managed to solve every problem, issue or questions we've had, but it has been slower than most of our vendors. Where we typically get same day support from almost everyone, most Websense support tickets have been 1) open a ticket wait for a call back, 2) get an email requesting more data.. wait, 3) get an email requesting a time to work with us.. wait, 4) get a confirmation than actually get on a shared session to work, 5) be told they had logs to review first or needed to do research and would get back to us in a day or two... 6) more emails... 7) finally an email resolution or screen share to walk us through the resolution or setting change. Typically this was a 3 to 5 day turn around time. Since it's not a critical system for us, though extremely useful, it's not been a bid deal here.

Likelihood to Recommend

This software is extremely well suited to environments that want to prevent certain categories of website access for their users or do reporting on internet usage. An HR person will need technical assistance in making sense of most of the reports and analyzing what the data in the reports actually means, so for companies without an IT person in house that can explain such things, I think this software would be challenging for HR reporting purposes use only.

Debbie Johnson

Technology Systems Manager in Information Technology at Gentry Locke (Law Practice, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

View profile

Best on the market web proxy filtering product.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

April 27, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The Websense Web Security Suite was used in conjunction with the Websense Content Gateway proxy to provide a secure browsing environment for users. This allowed us to block unwanted categories and URLs from being browsed during company time as well as protecting users from real time threats such as malware and botnets.

Pros

Very good category setup for URLs
Protection from real time threats
Authentication so we know what users were going where and that they were legitimate users

Cons

Complex installation and full time management
Support times are lengthy unless you pay extra for MCS support

Likelihood to Recommend

I believe every business should have some type of web security/filtering for their users. This will decrease time spent on sites that are not work related such as Facebook and YouTube while protecting them from the many real time threats on networks such as things like Crypto locker.

Alan Matson, CCNA:S, MCP

Senior Network Security Engineer in Information Technology at Insight (Information Technology and Services, 5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

View profile