Press Release
User profile management specialist Avanite has been signed as an Ivanti One Technology Certified Partner by Ivanti. Avanite’s WebData Control solution for managing and reducing the size of Windows users’ web browser databases and WebCache files has been tested and validated to Ivanti’s integration guidelines.
WebData Control is the only solution that reduces the size of users’ web browser databases, and gives administrators full control over users’ browsing data to ensure that only required information is kept. WebCache files can easily be 500MB or more, which can take minutes to load up when users log on, impacting productivity and user experience.
The Avanite solution can reduce the size of WebCache files by 80 to 90%, and the number of cookies in a typical WebCache from typically 5,000 or more. The WebCache file size is also larger for Windows 10 machines: typically double the size of that on a Windows 7 machine. Also, browsers such as Chrome and Firefox have their own files, so if users visit a web site they double up on this data.
Jon Wallace, Chief Technologist at Ivanti said: “The Windows user profile is often the biggest contributing factor to slow logins with size having a dramatic impact and a detrimental effect on the user experience. The team at Avanite, an Ivanti One partner, have spent years dissecting and understanding the user profile and its contents allowing them to ascertain what can be tuned or safely eliminated allowing organizations to take full advantage of their persona management solutions. By applying smart policies to cookies or aging unused application data, Avanite can reduce the overall size of the user profile allowing persona management solutions to be more efficient, reducing overall storage costs and speeding up the logon process.”
Avanite Director, Francesco Giarletta said: “People can learn what you are doing without you knowing: within your WebCache you see a lot of 3rd party links, and the biggest file we’ve seen was 5GB. This can take up to 10 minutes to load when logging on. It’s a significant problem. Users don’t need a good 90% of what is in their WebCache: it’s of no value to your business. It’s put on your users’ machines by a third party, you’re paying for that, and then you are sending the third party all your information which they gather and then sell on to the highest bidder.”
When users browse a website, data including cookies from that website are downloaded to their machines. Many web pages also contain links to other third-party websites which also download data, much of which is used for tracking user behaviour and targeted advertising. This data is used and controlled by third parties, and also affects the user experience by increasing logon times, as well as increasing the number of support calls, storage costs and network requirements.
Additionally, with cyber security (and GDPR) at the forefront of people minds, it is important for administrators to have a view of what is actually on users’ computers and then be able to set policies to define what data is required and what can be safely removed. Some web data contains sensitive information such as usernames and passwords to critical systems and other identifiable data. Conventional methods of tidying up this data, such as clearing the Internet Explorer browser cache does not truly remove this data.
