Increased productivity a proven benefit of Symantec's new filtering software

Consider that about 10 percent of all Web sites are pornographic in nature and that these sites are visited by 317 000 unique users every month while gaming sites average 500 000 unique users per month. These figures clearly indicate that some companies have a problem with productivity levels.

It's a growing issue which parents and educational organisations have been aware of and concerned about for some time, says Jako Voges, marketing manager for Symantec's Africa and Middle East region. Now companies are beginning to realise the impact in terms of lost productivity as well.

Enter Symantec's newly released I-Gear software, which promises to boost corporate productivity with comprehensive, multi-platform, policy-based URL filtering capabilities. It is perfect for Web administrators and corporate security personnel who are concerned about productivity and resources like network bandwidth.

Voges says I-Gear will provide corporate, education and ISP customers with comprehensive, policy-based URL filtering which provides protection on multiple platforms and uses patent-pending Dynamic Document Review (DDR).

DDR, the industry's first multilingual, context-sensitive, real-time filtering technology provides real-time filtering technology that reviews Web documents on the fly, enabling safe use of search engines and even new web pages not yet categorised.

Without having to rely purely on a database of off-limits URLs, the benefit, according to Voges, marketing manager of Symantec's Middle East & Africa region, is that the technology can keep up with the explosion of new sexually explicit, gambling and other undesirable content websites. The drawback with the database approach is that the database will always be out of date and something will always slip through, he says.

"One of the primary benefits of URL filtering is that it boosts productivity by ensuring that employees surf only work-related Web sites," explains Voges. "I-Gear is also available on the NT, Solaris and Linux platforms and its flexible Policy Management interface makes setting up rules for users or groups of users intuitive and easy."

Customisable list-based filtering with pre-filled categories such as sex, crime, gambling and intolerance can be made applicable to users, groups of users, computers, or groups of computers.

"I-Gear allows the administrator to give users different web access based on who they are and where they are," Voges explains. "For example, administrators can specify that certain users are allowed to access certain web sites during work hours.

It also has an access scheduling property, which allows web access by time of day and day of week. Businesses can focus specific users or departments on job-related sites during business hours and still allow open Internet access during lunch or after hours.

"Employee privacy after hours can be protected by de-activating the log-in requirement. This sends a clear message to employees that the Internet resource will be used exclusively for business purposes during the workday, but unrestricted access is available as a perk after hours."

Scheduling can also be used to curb high-bandwidth Internet usage during peak hours of demand, freeing limited resources for those who need it most.

"I-Gear is the only product that provides comprehensive, flexible scheduling capabilities to ensure a company's IT investment is used wisely," he says.