Sophos Web Content Filtering

Score8.9 out of 10

17 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Sophos Web Content Filtering are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Flexibility in email management options: Users have appreciated the ability to choose from various options for handling emails, such as releasing, deleting, blocking, or reporting them as spam. This flexibility allows users to effectively manage their inbox according to their preferences and needs.

Helpful warning labels for email security: Several reviewers found the presence of warning labels at the top of emails to be a beneficial feature. These labels clearly indicate whether an email is from a trusted sender or an external sender that may not be trusted. This helps users make informed decisions about which emails to block and enhances their email security.

Valuable daily quarantine emails: Some users find great value in receiving daily notifications detailing quarantined emails. They appreciate being informed about which emails have been quarantined and having the option to release or delete them. This feature helps users stay on top of their email management and ensures that important messages are not missed.

Reviews

7 Reviews

Sophos Web Content Filtering, very intuitive and secure web filtering

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

January 26, 2023

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use web filtering to prevent access to websites with malicious, pornographic or illegal content.

We could also only allow access to content related to the work to be performed by people.

You can also restrict access to websites whose content is in your configuration file, this has been done through a list of terms.

Pros

Restrict access to web pages with malicious content.
Restrict access to illegal websites.
Allow access to websites allowed in the company.

Cons

It only allows UTF-8 encoded characters.
It does not support metadata.
It does not support comments in the custom filter file.

Likelihood to Recommend

We use it to filter the web content that users can view from their workstation.

In this way we limit access to websites with malicious, illegal content or content not allowed by the company.

It is a very flexible system that allows you to restrict access to all employees and define exceptions by departments or people.

José Javier Dominguez Reina

Jefe de Proyecto in Information Technology at SIPYCOPY (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

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Let Sophos tame your WWW, (wild wild web) traffic...

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

January 17, 2023

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

For our organization, Sophos security solutions for web content control, and endpoint security is an effective solution pairing. The Sophos integrated security solution allowed us to resolve users from venturing into unsafe web space, with use of DNS blocking (resolve only names via categories etc.) These features allow less false positives and better web content control for users to browse Internet searching with less fear of intrusion of unsafe web sites (non compliant).

Pros

Categorize content
Rules for exceptions
Custom error screens for end user

Cons

Adding of new categories to filter engines
Updates for known bad searches
Domain whitelist ordering

Likelihood to Recommend

For web content settings per type of traffic and also ability to have protected groups for easy deployment to large groups. safer searching tools for web users could be implemented if possible. Allow a warning for user to proceed with adding exception text to override, may be a nice to have.

Rob Domenico

Senior Systems Administrator in Information Technology at Bentek Inc. (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

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Simple and Straighforward Web Content Filtering with Sophos

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

January 17, 2023

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Sophos for Web Content Filtering by implementing policies to restrict access to websites that contain any of the terms listed that we deem not suitable for the workplace or that might pose a cybersecurity risk for our environment. It is pretty straightforward, and the Sophos Firewall takes care of the rest.

Pros

Impede access to NSFW pages
Avoid the risk of having to deal with potentially malicious websites
Block access to platforms that could facilitate Data Exfiltration
Pretty Straightforward. Set it and forget it, and from time to time tweak it.
Possibility of notification when there's an attempt.

Cons

I can't think of one. The product is pretty straightforward in this aspect.

Likelihood to Recommend

Sophos Web Content Filtering is suited for any Corporate environment, where cybersecurity is taken seriously.

It is a measure in multiple layers of defense in depth to minimize the risk of having nsfw content in the workplace, avoiding platforms that facilitate data exfiltration, and cutting access to pages that are potentially malicious.

Verified User

Technician in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

You'll want to get Sophos

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

January 17, 2023

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Sophos to filter out emails that may be spam or scams. We receive emails twice a day letting us know which emails have been quarantined, and we have the option to release them to our inbox or delete them from the platform entirely. We are also able to block email addresses that we know are nefarious.

Pros

Allowing options: I am able to choose from several different options (release, release and allow, delete, block, block and report to Spam)
Warning labels: emails have labels at the top to define if an email is from a trusted sender or the email is from an external sender and may not be trusted. I can block those emails, if I choose to
Quarantine emails: I appreciate the 2x daily emails detailing which emails have been quarantined, and if I would like to release them or delete them

Cons

Almost too good: Sophos may quarantine several emails at first that it doesn't know are important, but I am able to allow those email addresses to my inbox
Individual email addresses: sometimes I would like Sophos to allow email domains rather than specific addresses; if I have a few different people who email me from the same domain, I have to allow each individual address
Allowing email addresses throughout company: when I release and allow an email address, it just allows it to come to my inbox; each member of my company will have to go in and allow the same address to their inbox

Likelihood to Recommend

Before Sophos, I would receive scammers regarding tradeshow lists. People wanted me to pay for lists, but these people weren't actually from the tradeshows. I can now block those, and have received much fewer of those scams.

I am also able to open emails within quarantine to view them before deleting, releasing, allowing, or blocking. I use this to my advantage, and am able to make better decisions on what to do with the emails.

Ashley Linn

Sales and Marketing Specialist in Marketing at Cutsforth, Inc (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

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Sophos Web Content Filtering for Ultimate Web Content Filtering

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

January 17, 2023

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It helped to block the access to the websites for particular network group. User can easily upload the policies in order to secure the organization data from malicious sites. It played a key role in cyber security by adding and removing the policies easily. It also audited the sites accessed within organization.

Pros

Blocking the content using the provided terms
Email security
Cloud security

Cons

Cloud security can be improved
Scope to do more meaningful auditing
Scope in endpoint security

Likelihood to Recommend

Suitable for cloud, endpoint and email security. Also when network security is important. Helpful when data, system performance parameters are important. When an organization wants to do threat detection and analysis in order to prevent future attacks. Not suitable when data and bandwidth access is not an issue to the organization.

Verified User

Contributor in Engineering (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

If Only Sophos Web Content Filtering Could Filter My Words...

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

January 16, 2023

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Sophos Web Content Filtering on Sophos XG firewalls at my primary company of employment, as well as a local non-profit (school) I volunteer with. In both cases, we use the solution as one of the protective layers for Internet users. While we also use anti-x and EDR technologies to protect against threats, Sophos Web Content Filtering is an additive layer that also protects mobile and guest devices within our network.

Pros

Sophos does an excellent job of category-based content filtering. It's easy to configure and flexible for many environments with the ability to tighten or loosen restrictions as requirements determing.
Sophos' built-in capabilites can force safe search rules to protect against content work-arounds like Image search and search engines in general.
The Sophos XTreme architecture also helps improve the overall performance of the Web Content Filtering solution. It is very quick and very transparent when in use on the network.

Cons

While safe search enforcement in built-in and a useful tool (especially in environments where minors are to be protected), it is somewhat difficult to implement. Although documentation will easily walk one through setup, I suspect this will be remedied in upcoming releases of Sophos OS.

Likelihood to Recommend

The Web Content Filtering solution is a great fit for all environments. The ability to tighten or loosed restrictions, the category-based nature of the setup, the ability to create custom categories and specific site allowances makes this tool well suited for any network. Need something more granular? Sophos can do it. Need something a little less complicated? Sophos can handle that just as easily.

Mitchel Laman

IT Manager in Information Technology at Remington Global, Inc. (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

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Sophos Web Filtering at a Glance

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

October 9, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Sophos Web Content Filtering is used along all our organization, since it supplies a wide range of features and categorization. What really helps for us IT Managers/CTOs/Everyday Admin is to be able to add categories and work around what users try to bypass, the SWCF, helps even filtering SSL and putting straight forward administration through its console.

Pros

Ease of administration
Great technical support
Millions of domains added daily with Sophos Labs Reputation Service

Cons

Initial Setup Guide could be more detailed
WebGui Interface, needs some smoothness
More simple models (in the hardware version) for smaller organizations to be able to implement this system

Likelihood to Recommend

Sophos Web Content Filtering suits better along every organization that needs web filtering base on roles/users, and schedules to be applied throughout the network. All IT Admins have the need to control and report to General Management what are the users doing within their internet surfing, along with Web Protection and Productivity. This is why, in my opinion, every network/corporation/home network should have web filtering for categorization, protection and reporting. I do not see a scenario where it is less appropriate since nowadays everything is network connected to the Internet, so everything within our networks should be reported and controlled.

Juan Carlos Sanchez Pignalosa

CEO And Founder in Information Technology at Advisor Consulting Group Corp (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

Reseller

8 years of experience

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You'll want to get Sophos

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

January 17, 2023

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Allowing options: I am able to choose from several different options (release, release and allow, delete, block, block and report to Spam)
Warning labels: emails have labels at the top to define if an email is from a trusted sender or the email is from an external sender and may not be trusted. I can block those emails, if I choose to
Quarantine emails: I appreciate the 2x daily emails detailing which emails have been quarantined, and if I would like to release them or delete them

Cons

Almost too good: Sophos may quarantine several emails at first that it doesn't know are important, but I am able to allow those email addresses to my inbox
Individual email addresses: sometimes I would like Sophos to allow email domains rather than specific addresses; if I have a few different people who email me from the same domain, I have to allow each individual address
Allowing email addresses throughout company: when I release and allow an email address, it just allows it to come to my inbox; each member of my company will have to go in and allow the same address to their inbox

Likelihood to Recommend

Ashley Linn

Sales and Marketing Specialist in Marketing at Cutsforth, Inc (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

View profile