Vital Security Appliance NG-5100 (Group Test: Web filtering)

While we were pleased with most of the products tested, two stood out. First, our coveted Best Buy award goes to SurfControl's Web Filter. This is a product that has just got better over the years, while retaining its ease of use. A large URL database and simple, rules-based management let you quickly and simply choose which websites to allow or to deny. It's very customizable and includes bandwidth and time quotas. Our Recommended award goes to Finjan's Vital Security Appliance NG-5100. It's a little more difficult to set up than some of the others, but is one of the most powerful. It has support for multiple scanning engines, as well as antivirus and anti-spam. Best of all, rather than keeping all these components separate, Finjan has integrated them into one policy generator. For large networks, its distributed approach and flexible rule management make it an excellent choice.