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 Webroot Desktop Firewall Review
May 14, 2005 - Part II
by Andrew Cooper
With little effort, I got to the program's main window:
It looked nice and simple, but I couldn't locate the real-time traffic monitor I wanted so badly. Later I found out it's not even provided, and that left me looking for any other benefits or interesting features the program might have.
On the left pane of the program three categories are shown. The first one gives users a view of the status of their firewall. The second, the Settings tab, offers to make necessary settings to the program such as an option to "stealth" people's Internet presence, and to specify if resource sharing over the LAN should be allowed, and other more basic settings that are found in most programs of this class. The third icon, Permissions, lists programs with their modifiable Internet access permissions and blocked IPs list.
The program at work
The program consumes 12 Mbs of RAM memory in its three spawned processes. Every time an unknown program, or one which the user has set to "ask for permission" in the Permissions setting, requested to access the Internet, the firewall brought up the following confirmation screen:
As with all firewalls, the user decides what to do with the program - whether or not it should be granted permission to access the Internet. It's really too bad the creators didn't compile a list of known or often-used programs that legitimately access the Internet, where users' interaction would be unnecessary. Desktop Firewall doesn't even give recommendations on what the user should do in case he/she is unfamiliar with the requesting program. And weblinks on the program's interface that were supposed to help weren't working.
I started to feel disappointed with the program as I was using it, partly because of some minor errors and under-functionalities, but my discontent with it really set in when it blocked my Intranet resource sharing despite the fact that I'd allowed it. I thought maybe the program could make up for its past errors, and decided to subject the firewall to "leak tests" -- a common measure of a firewall's performance.
And to my surprise it failed all of them -- proving its absolute uselessness.
By that time I was really sick and tired of this program, so I uninstalled it and then I felt much better. I then returned to the firewall I'd been using before - in future articles hope to find one that is at least on par with the two products I mentioned earlier.
Verdict
In its present state, this program is a waste of time and, if purchased, money as well. It's no better than the Windows SP2's free firewall, and can hardly be called a firewall -- rather, a "bagel hole".
Developer's web site: www.webroot.com
To download the program click here
Read next:
Back to Part I
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