[4][5][6][7] The company began as a reseller of network security products,[7][8] and then developed software for controlling Internet use by employees.

[7] In 2015, Raytheon acquired the firm from Vista Equity Partners for $1.9 billion[20] and combined it with RCP, formerly part of its IIS segment, to form Raytheon|Websense.

[26][28] At the time, Forcepoint had 2,000 employees, with one-third of its customers being departments in the federal government of the United States.

[29] In February 2017, Forcepoint acquired a cloud-based access broker (CASB) security product from Imperva called Skyfence.

[27][30] In the fourth quarter of 2019, Raytheon acquired the remaining 20% of the company from Vista Ventures Partners LLC for $588 million.

[2] In October 2020, Francisco Partners announced their agreement to acquire Forcepoint from Raytheon successor RTX Corporation.

[43] Available filtering categories on Websense included "Professional and Worker Organizations" (such as trade unions), "Sites sponsored by or providing information about political parties and interest groups" (such as civil rights organisations), "Gay or Lesbian or Bisexual Interest", "Sex education", "Sites that provide information about or promote religions not specified in Traditional Religions", and "Sports".

[45] In a 2005, report the Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union called Websense a deeply flawed technology.

[46] It further noted that, although the blocking technology had improved over the years since 2002, it still remained a "blunt instrument" and that in public libraries equipped with Websense people of all ages were "still denied access to a wide range of legitimate material.

[48] In February 2012, Forcepoint released a cloud-based suite of IT security products for smartphones, tablets, laptops, USB drives, and other mobile devices.

[52] However, then Sanaa based British-Irish journalist Iona Craig complained on Twitter, access to Tumblr, which many press agents use to spread news, remained closed inside Yemen, her pleas being ignored.

It soon appeared that Canadian software company Netsweeper also aids Yemen authorities to censor, even the Houthi government being its customer.

[58] A 2002 study in JAMA found that Forcepoint had the best-performing web-filtering products in terms of blocking pornography while allowing health information.

[59] According to blogger Jillian York, Forcepoint blocks pages that contain pornographic links anywhere in its content, even in the comments section.