Why It’s Time to Get Smarter About Filtering Your K-12 School

A revolution in web filtering for schools

The internet is changing, technology is changing, and it’s time for filtering to change, too. Lightspeed Filter™ brings schools a needed revolution in web filtering.

All the things that used to be difficult to filter and report — social media, YouTube, mobile filtering, and SSL traffic — are easy with Lightspeed Filter. Lightspeed Filter is powered by Smart Agents that give you anytime, anywhere, granular control and insight.

As more and more of the Web has shifted to SSL, filtering has gotten more challenging for schools. Decrypting HTTPS traffic is essential for schools so that they can filter and report on students’ web activity: Google searches, what YouTube videos they are watching, and what sites they are accessing.

In order to decrypt SSL traffic, schools have been forced to set up a trusted-man-in-the-middle (TMITM) proxy, set up complicated PAC files, and push certificates to each and every device. It’s a lot to do and a lot to manage — especially for busy school IT teams.

Not anymore!

Once you start using Smart Agents in Filter, you can say goodbye to the proxy server, the PAC files, and the certificates because Smart Agents take care of all of that for you. Schools get the insight and control they need with none of the hassles.

Smart Agents sit on devices and handle all the hard work of filtering and decrypting SSL. They keep devices filtered and students safe no matter where they go; what network they’re connected to; and what sites or apps they’re using.

This is important to schools because it ensures 24/7 safety with less work, less bandwidth, and no hardware. They’re easy to push out, lightweight enough to minimize back-and-forth calls to the cloud, sit quietly on the devices, and can’t be removed. Even though Smart Agents are a whole new way to filter, they’re built on our decades of experience with mobile filtering agents — so they’re technologies schools can trust.

Relay’s Smart Agents also make it easy to allow safe YouTube videos; control (or block) access to social media; block filter bypass tools like Psiphon and UltraSurf; and report on everything students do on their school-owned devices. Filter reports where they go online; how long they spend there; and what they type and do on every site.

Oh, and did we mention you can get Lightspeed Systems Filter for not just your Chromebooks but also your Mac, Microsoft, iOS, and BYO devices?