Let me start by saying my advice may be worth what you pay for it… so if your reading this feel free to send me some cash so that the advice will be more valuable. (snicker) With that said…  I’ve previously talked about my 3 choices for Internet Filtering Appliances in Web Filtering, Look for this:

St. Bernard iPrism
Barracuda Networks Web Filter
Cymphonix Network Composer

…anyways, like I said I decided on the Barracuda Web Filter. Several reasons for my choice. One reason it it got great reviews like this one from SC Magazine. Spyware & malware filtering (including a removal tool that is pushed out from the appliance) were a big plus but honestly the main concern was price. Fortunately for me, this time the cheaper seems to be the better product. I really wanted an appliance that would let me designate web content by group, because while my general office users really has no need for porn at work, my doctors pay for it all so want to look at whatever they might “need to”. Either way..that’s another issue for another day. At the same time I don’t want anyone going to sites that are known to be infected with viruses or spyware, see my point?
Another thing was I wanted really detailed reporting on internet usage and whats more have it emailed to supervisors monthly so I don’t have to spend time running reports. Automation can be a great thing. The Cuda had some other “perks” too. One of which was a by pass port so that if my Cuda goes down, traffic simply bypasses the appliance all together, so people can look at anything, but no network outage. This is especially nice if you don’t like getting call 2 hours before you normally get out of bed…But then again maybe that is just me. The Cuda had all I wanted and for a much nicer price tag than the competitors. Performance was great, it didn’t seem to hinder any network throughput, and my Docs save some bling, bling (sorry I know I shouldn’t use references like that.) Just a few reason, I decided to make it my purchase.

Like I said I should be installing said appliance so I’ll let you know how that goes. Feel free to ask me anything about what all I looked at & have a “gud un.”
Cheers