Cisco Umbrella is an app that protects users from malware and malicious activities on the internet. It processes 620 billion internet requests from at least 26,000 customers.
It might seem like it has a good cause, but it is still hated by the students of GUSD. It’s an app that supposedly blocks malicious websites and apps. While this may seem reasonable on the outside, Cisco Umbrella blocks websites that it doesn’t make sense to block in the first place.
Though Cisco Umbrella does block websites, most of the time those are websites that let people play video games on the Chromebook, though this might not work. You see, people will always find another website to use to play games, so blocking websites that let you play games isn’t worth it, they should just let you play games on the Chromebook, perhaps on websites that won’t give a virus on the Chromebook, but instead would let you play good games.
This whole blocking website that lets you play games is part of a bigger issue with school not being fun enough for students to enjoy, so students try to find ways to make it more fun for themselves, which would be to play games on the Chromebook.
This isn’t an end for the bad streak that Cisco is collecting, Cisco Umbrella is blocking potentially malicious websites. This is a problem because Cisco is banning websites that it thinks are potentially malicious, this could result in websites being blocked because of Cisco Umbrella thinking that they are potentially malicious, when in reality, those websites aren’t malicious and are safe to use for the average person.
Going back to the topic of blocking malicious websites, Cisco Umbrella blocks way too many websites for students, some of these websites could be beneficial for student use and for their learning or understanding of the work that they do. But Cisco just blocks them, which perhaps could make teaching a topic for students harder for the teacher than it is.
So, the reasons why Cisco Umbrella should be removed are that it blocks websites that aren’t a threat to the student and that it potentially makes learning harder by blocking websites that could help students in their school careers. It also blocks websites that it might think are bad, which could perhaps be abused, which is an unpleasant time for the students and the teachers who have to deal with Cisco Umbrella. While hundreds of people might recommend Cisco Umbrella for being a helpful tool for the school environment, it is not a good tool if not used correctly.
