Kerio Personal Firewall 4 - part III

by Andrew Cooper

Functionality

The main window you deal with is the Overview window, which displays all applications ready to establish a connection (listening) or already is connected in or out:



Clicking on the + next to an application name expands the list and shows additional info about that app.

I don't understand why you can't block these connections right from this listing. It's not much of a programming task to enable this. Instead you've got to go to the Network Security window, a minor annoyance.

In the Statistics tab you can see the general stats for the last hour, day, week or month. About the only use of this for me is to see if Kerio prevented a denial of service attack, but some people may find it interesting to look at the numbers.

The Preferences tab lets you select Update settings, enable gateway mode (for Internet Connection Sharing) and import old configurations from Kerio version 2.1. You can also set a password to protect your settings from being changed by another user working on your PC.

Another window you might use frequently is Logs & Alerts to see all the events Kerio filters. The logs are divided into four categories: Network Security, System Security, Intrusions and Web.



Click on the left side menu items to set those particular logging options for applications and intrusions. This window is pretty intuitive and most users will have no trouble with it, but it would be great to have a single "Log all events" button to make Kerio simply log every event it filters.

A very useful function is Kerio's ability to block banner ads, pop-ups and pop-unders. Other firewalls have this so it's nothing new, but it's good for those of us who object to intrusive ads from web pages.

Ad blocking is accessed by its tab in the Web window and looks like this:



This page also has the Web Content blocking options although it would be more reasonable to find it in the Privacy tab.

Blocking web content like JavaScript, Visual Basic and ActiveX components is very important as some Internet sites use these elements to attack your PC, obtain your private info or transfer a virus.

The Privacy tab lets you block cookies, referrers and the transfer of private info (this is what didn't work for me earlier).

The Exception sites tab allows you to select custom settings for your favorite web sites where you want to allow cookies, referrers and active content.

Ease of use

I found Kerio easy to use. I didn't have to continually refer to the Help topics as things were generally intuitive and clear. You can change the program's settings very quickly with a few mouse-clicks.

Verdict



Kerio Personal Firewall 4 is certainly worth your attention when looking for a firewall. It provides a decent level of protection and functionality. However, I cannot recommend it because it failed to block some security risks when I tested it with Firehole and Copycat. There are other products with features this firewall lacks. On the other hand, Kerio is easy to use, so despite its drawbacks, some users might prefer it to other firewalls.

Developer's web site: http://www.kerio.com

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