Top 4 benefits of web monitoring

Although the occasional three-minute YouTube video never hurts anyone, wasting hours of your working day on these websites reduces productivity. When it comes to increasing employee productivity, keeping a close eye on their internet behavior reaps various benefits.

Time-saving measures

Internet monitoring software saves employees from visiting entertainment, gaming, or online shopping sites by restricting access to them. Internet monitoring software doesn’t necessarily block access to social media sites, but it lets your employees know that you’re monitoring their internet activity. This is aimed at discouraging them from taking prolonged visits to their Facebook, Twitter or Instagram page.

Avoid harmful websites

The internet hosts plenty of unsavory links and websites. Employees who haphazardly click phishing links or access malware-ridden pornography sites can put your business at risk. Working with infected machines can slow down the entire system and, in some cases, completely halt operations. By using internet monitoring tools, you can restrict access to dangerous websites and identify reckless employees who access them and remove their internet privileges, if necessary.

Control bandwidth usage

Even while using the internet for the right purposes, bandwidth can be used up quickly. Internet monitoring gives you up-to-the-minute reports on staff’s bandwidth usage. Once you have a clear understanding of your company’s overall bandwidth usage, you can better control internet expenditure. Ultimately, this feature allows you to prioritize bandwidth for critical business applications and reduce bandwidth for less necessary websites.

Increase productivity on the internet

Internet monitoring software may be a powerful tool, but it should be used responsibly. As a business owner, you need to walk a fine line between over-surveillance and under-surveillance. What you should do is establish a clear internet policy, which should explicitly define the disciplinary measures to be dispensed on anybody who goes against the company’s internet policy. You should also deal with time-wasting employees on a case-by-case basis because it’s unreasonable to remove everyone’s Facebook privileges because one or two abused theirs.

Employee productivity can be difficult to achieve, especially with the proliferation of the so-called “procrastination software.” But with web monitoring software, you can truly get your business — and your employees — back on track. Looking for more ways to increase business productivity with technology? Give us a call. We’ll be happy to make suggestions.

Windows 10: Tips to protect your privacy

Many business users are becoming more and more concerned about data privacy. If you’re a Windows 10 user and you’re concerned about how the operating system collects your data, follow these tips to ensure your data’s protection.

Slip off the grid

Thanks to location tracking, nearby restaurants and future weather predictions are at your fingertips. While some might not mind this feature, there are others who wish to enjoy some privacy from their smartphones every once in a while.

To turn it off, launch the Settings app, tap Privacy, and disable the Location tab. If you wish to share your location with certain apps, scroll down and activate the ‘Choose apps that can use your location’ tab and choose your desired apps.

Say goodbye to ad tracking

Every time you surf the net, you leave a trail of breadcrumbs that lead directly to your online profile. This problem is easily solved by deactivating ad tracking. Windows 10, however, goes a tad further by using an advertising ID, which gathers information based on web browsing usage and whenever you use Windows 10 apps.

To take care of that, launch the Settings app, go to General, look for “Change privacy options,” then move the slider from on to off. If you want to make sure you have no virtual stalkers, head to choice.microsoft.com/en-us/opt-out and disable the “Personalized ads whenever I use my Microsoft account” tab.

Disable Wi-Fi Sense

This feature is designed to let you easily share Wi-Fi connections with specific users, but hackers can misuse it to log on to your network without your permission. To disable it, launch the Setting app, go to Network & Internet > Wi-Fi > and click on Wi-Fi Sense. From there, deactivate two bars: “Connect to suggested open hotspots” and “Connect to networks shared my contacts”.

Cortana, why so clingy?

Albeit helpful, the digital assistant Cortana requires access to your personal information. But you can stop her from collecting data by logging in to your Microsoft account and clearing all the information Cortana and other Microsoft services (ex. Bing maps) have gathered.

You can also clear the information in your interests section or head over to the “interest manager” tab to edit the interests you want Cortana to track.

More privacy options

All of these tips are easy to follow and will take only five to ten minutes to implement, but if you like to make very detailed adjustments to your system’s privacy setup, launch the Settings app and go to Privacy.

We hope you find these five privacy protection tips helpful. If you need more help protecting your information or securing your network, give us a call.