Sharing a single Internet connection among multiple users has never been simpler and UserGate also lets untrained people (not System Administrators) limit the Internet connectivity of their employees. With a single external Internet connection and multiple users you simply decide on your priorities. If you are managing an office or a corporate network, security and employee productivity take precedence.
One factor that is not commonly recognized is that unlimited Internet connectivity can harm employee performance. When it comes to business networks 'fast' and 'unlimited' do not optimize productivity. The Internet is rife with spyware and viruses that can significantly threaten your corporate security and productivity. It only takes one virus getting through your security defenses to corrupt or even destroy the information on all of your networked computers, costing you days and weeks of recovery time. Spyware routinely steals sensitive information such as passwords and private documents. Spyware dramatically decreases computer performance and it displays annoying pop-up windows that distract and have to be closed off. Viruses and spyware have effectively paralyzed even the most technologically sophisticated corporations and you can now benefit from what they learned with the safeguards built into UserGate.
Expensive productivity threats are not always as covert as viruses or spyware. The Internet holds many distractions to your employees' attention. It has become common for employees to use their office computers and their work time to play online Flash games aptly called 'office killers'. Online chats and instant messengers are a close second to computer games in wasting employee time. If you pay for Internet traffic, an employee using your Internet connection to download music, games or even movies will cost you directly. If your organization uses VoIP to save on long distance bills, it is vital that no employee can use your Internet connection's entire bandwidth. Otherwise your calls will not go through, and you can easily lose a client because of a missed call or because the conversation quality is embarrassingly poor.
Even though these various threats are real and are severe, some very highly trained engineers put together a simple solution that minimizes them and increases your employee productivity. UserGate proxy server produced by Entensys (http://www.entensys.com/) provides Internet connectivity to your entire organization while eliminating the usual threats and performance bottlenecks caused by Internet Connection Sharing. UserGate blocks viruses and spyware with its advanced dual-core anti-virus*. UserGate limits your employees to their work assignments instead of socializing over the Internet or wasting time, and it saves on your Internet bills by monitoring, limiting and optimizing the bandwidth used by each employee.
*Dual-core anti-virus is very real and very powerful. When Intel released its first dual-core processor, the benefits of increased performance and smoother multitasking became obvious to even the most conservative users. With two anti-virus cores-Panda and Kaspersky-and real-time online updates, UserGate provides tighter security and higher reliability than any single anti-virus solution. Being a proxy server, UserGate prevents spyware and viruses from getting onto your employee computers by scanning all external Internet traffic.
Once installed, UserGate becomes the only connection between your employees and the Internet. Workers cannot access anything beyond your corporate network and external influences cannot affect your computers. This approach allows for extremely effective control over how and when your employees can use your Internet connections. You can prohibit access to specific file types, sites, resources or protocols making it impossible for employees to chat, download personal-use files or play online games during their work time. VoIP connections can be prioritized over end-user traffic, allowing for crystal clear phone calls over the Internet. Additionally, thanks to extensive journal support, you will always be able to see exactly what has been accessed by each employee and the bandwidths they consumed.
In spite of its sophistication (or because of it), UserGate is easy to install and configure, and it requires no further administration or any extra attention. UserGate improves corporate security and increases employee productivity with no extra effort and zero administration. Download your free evaluation copy now from http://www.entensys.com/
About the Author: Helen Markova, marketing manager, Entensys Press Center