D-Link DSD-150 SecureSpot Internet Security Adapter

Average customer rating: 3.0

Great Product
Great Concept Poorly Executed
It works so well I cannot use any computer
Not bad but could be better
Excellent parental control but will slow down you connection

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Internet Security Suites

D-Link DSD-150 SecureSpot Internet Security Adapter

Manufacturer: D-Link Systems, Inc.
Product Group: CE
Binding: Electronics
ASIN: B000EUCMV6

Related Categories:

Networking & Online Communication

Networking & Online Communication

Product Description

To combat the alarming number of annoying and potentially disastrous security breaches to the home or small office, D-Link brings you the first desktop Internet Security Device (ISD) that provides multi-tiered protection for all networked PCs against viruses, spam, spyware, pop-ups, hackers and other privacy invasions while operating under a single integrated, easy-to-use web-based control center.

D-Link SecureSpot performs multiple security functions with a single plug-and-play device and a web-hosted control center, putting an end to the need for consumers to select, buy, and integrate disparate stand-alone firewalls, pop-up blockers, reporting applications, content and spam filters and antivirus protection. SecureSpot consolidates firewall, antivirus, intrusion detection, content filtering, pop-up and spyware killers into one small device. Powered by BSecure Technologies, all product functions operate under one Web-managed system that provides protection for the home or small office network and attached Windows or OSX-based computers. D-Link SecureSpot is designed to make users' personal choices in content filtering easier, safer, more reliable and faster - it will not slow down Internet traffic. Support for all Windows 98 and higher operating systems, and Macintosh OSX 10.3 and 10.4

Customer Reviews:

Great Product.......2007-04-10

I bought this only for the parental control feature and have no plans to use the thin clients, virus protection, etc. I gave up on Norton Internet Security's Parental Control because my 16-year old son who has been able to find many bad sites Norton was not blocking. I have two desktop PC's with a wireless router, and two college daughters who drop in from time to time with their wireless laptops.

I am very pleased with this solution because:
-- I can administer parental control for all of my PC's from one location.
-- SecureSpot's blocking of offensive material is much better than Norton's
-- The The ability to block individual sites and allow individual sites is easy to administer

When I hooked it up it did not work right away and I was looking at a hung Internet Explorer screen. I was concerned that it might be trying to update the firmware and as I've heard horror stories about interrupting firmware upgrades, I called D-Link's help desk. I talked to a very nice, not-in-a-hurry customer service rep. He didn't share my concern about interrupting a firmware upgrade, so we powered the SecureSpot down and started over. This time I got a screen right away asking if I wanted to upgrade the firmware. With him on the phone, I attempted a firmware upgrade 4-5 times with it failing each time. My firmware version was 1.0 and the latest is 2.0 with 2-3 versions in between. Finally he suggested that I upgrade the firmware one version at a time rather than all the way from 1.0 to 2.0. Weirdly, that's what the problem was. So I upgraded it one version at a time. Who could have known that?

From that point on, I could have figured the rest out on my own. However, I spent a total of 1 1/4 hrs on the phone with the rep because he kept suggesting that I do things that I didn't really want to do. There was an "Activate" hyperlink early in the process. I kept suggesting to him that I should click on that and he kept telling me to try other things. After trying many things at his request that didn't make sense to me, I ignored him and clicked on "activate" and everything worked. He didn't seem to have any idea what the screens were like that I was looking at. When I told him I did not want to install the thin clients, that really threw him for a loop. He said it couldn't be used that way and installing the thin clients was mandatory. I refused to do it. He told me to call back in on Monday and speak to a 2nd level support person. I didn't need to do that, as it's working great for me now, with no thin clients.

My experience, like others, was that the startup documentation was weak, setup took awhile and tried my patience, but it's working very well and this is a fantastic product for a home network!

Great Concept Poorly Executed.......2007-04-09

As many reviewers, I was attracted to this product both for the content filtering for my kids and to try to contain the spiraling costs of antivirus software for all the systems in my house. Unlike several reviewers I did understand there was a$79/Yr renewal fee, it was still cheaper than the $60/yr/machine cost Symantec was charging. Now on to the review.

The spam filter is pretty much worthless, turned if off the 2nd day after installing the product.
The pop-up blocker really is redundant and not needed with IE/Google/Yahoo all having the same functionality and work better. Problem was, I could not turn it off despite disabling it in the management console. A call to tech support, always friendly seldom helpful, advised me I would need to go disable the add-on in IE on all of my systems.. 5 as of now... arg....
The content filtering has been an on going battle. As another reviewer noted, it frequently looses it's mind and blocks almost everything. It seems to completely ignore the content settings in the management console. I have spent so many hours on the phone with tech support over this issue they know my kids by name and I now feel compelled to send them a Christmas card. My last round with tech support was after upgrading the thin client to 2.0, a move I hoped would solve some of the erratic behaviors, but not.. After the upgrade the profile for my youngest daughter was being blocked from the Disney web site???, Microsoft, and Google. After an hour on phone with tech support, during one of the numerous "can you hold while I check with tech staff" I decided to grab the laptop and try her account there to see if it exhibited the same problems. The problem disappeared.. The tech figured it was because I had logged into her account on two systems at the same time??? Today, Easter, it is blocking searches for "pictures of Easter Eggs" labeling the content as "unstable". Guess it might be worried one of the pictures of the eggs may fall and break. Now on to the firewall.

Until recently I had not fussed with the FW, having a wireless router behind the D-Link appliance I did not care much. This was until I switched my phone service over to Vonage...I had configured the D-Link for use with Vonage, they actually have a default config to set up for use with Vonage. Thought everything was great. That was until I started getting a lot of calls to my cell from my kid's friends. I soon realized that Vonage was forwarding the calls from my home phone to the cell because it thought my network was down. I.E. Vonage was not seeing the phone adaptor and figured my cable modem was down. I had my suspicions that it was a firewall issue, but thought it might be my wireless router because the D-Link already had the setting for Vonage configured. I decided to move the Vonage adaptor in front everything and connect it directly to the modem, then the D-Link and finally the wireless router.. not... the D-Link would not accept the DHCP configuration from the Vonage adaptor. That foiled I move the D-Link back to the front followed by Vonage and then the wireless router.. Still had same problems. I finally disable the firewall in the D-Link, problem solved.
So in summary, I have disabled the spam,pop-up and firewall features of this device. The content filtering is buggy. The only feature I have not had a problem with as of yet is the antivirus.. At this point I am very close to removing it entirely save for the antivirus costs.
With masters in software engineering and over 20 years in the industry, I have to say I am very disappointed that D-Link would release a product with this level of immaturity

It works so well I cannot use any computer.......2007-03-11

I had great hopes for this device. When I installed it on the network it locked me out of every computer. I could do nothing until it was removed. Customer support told me it would not work with my DSL modem. However, there are thousands of these modems in use, so it should work. I wished it worked.

Not bad but could be better.......2007-02-20

I am a network engineer and have had issues with this device since I got it. In theory, it is a great product, because it does everything that you want for network protection. However, in practice, it has issues working with other devices besides PCs, like VPN, an XBOX using XBox Live, or a Voice over IP phone like vonage. I have worked with their support people and they have been very helpful, but I think it is a design issue and not a setup issue.

Anyway my recommendation for most users, if you do not have any of the other devices I mentioned, is get it it is a great product, for those who do have the other devices, get if you have the time and energy to spen trying to get it to work with everything you have.

Excellent parental control but will slow down you connection.......2007-02-13

I have ordered two of these; one for myself and one for another family.

The parental control is provided by Bsafe.com (the best out there). Bsafe is a server base filtering system - so when you try to go to an internet site, the SecureSpot will go to a Bsafe server and verify if your system can go to the requested site. Bsafe does key word filtering (sometimes teenagers will do a search on a word such as "sex" and then continual to click the URL's to see if they will be allowed top go to an inappropriate site). Also, Bsafe will not allow clicking on a search engines caches (this is another way to bypass a parental filter). As I said Bsafe is the best out there in my opinion.

My wife's laptop performance improved when I removed Norton and install SecureSpot's Antivirus and Firewall software.

Overall, I am very satisfied with SecureSpot. Ever so often, my internet connection is slow down by SecureSpot (SecureSpot maybe waiting on the Server to allow it to continual on to the requested site).

If like me, you have teenagers with laptops, then SecureSpot is going to be your best solution even with the occasional network slowdown.

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