 |
 Outpost Firewall Pro 2.1 - part I
by Andrew Cooper
My personal firewall review series continues with Agnitum's newly released version 2.1 of its Outpost Personal Firewall Pro.
Earlier versions of the program were well received by Internet users around the world and especially so by security experts. The question I had when I started this review was how much of an improvement, if any, was achieved with this release. When I visited Agnitum's site, I was pleasantly surprised to read that their goals with Outpost were practically the same as what I wrote should be a firewall's emphasis in the first article of my series.
Getting started
After downloading and reading Agnitum's documents about Outpost's new features and the program in general, I have to say that the docs are clearly written, descriptive and (surprise, surprise) actually help you operate the program. They also provide some background on networks, firewalls and the Internet, which is good for rookie users, but I personally would prefer to see this in a separate guide.
The three main things that drew my attention in these docs are:
- Automatic configuration during setup. We all know that firewall rules are powerful stuff. They define specific policies for each application that accesses the network to ensure that everything is under your control, but they are a real pain in the butt to create. Templates can help, but I'll take a Wizard mode any day so all the necessary rules are created automatically. People can't benefit from features they don't know how to configure, and having to wade through dialogues is just plain annoying.For novices who understandably are afraid of using tools they don't know much about, automatic configuration is the way to go.
- Safe web surfing. This is good in anyone's books. Nobody wants cyber attacks, worms and other surprises while they surf. Lately I find myself hesitating before clicking on links. It reminds me of the old days when I had a s-l-o-w connection except now I think twice because I don't want some site screwing up my computer. Anything that puts my mind at ease while surfing is A Good Thing.
- Banner treatment. Advertisements have been around forever on the radio and TV. Now they're on web sites consuming my time, bandwidth and space in my browser. Occasionally I'd like to find out more about some product in an ad, but most of the time I prefer not to see them at all.
Okay, enough on the docs already. Let's take a closer look at Outpost's new version and see exactly what it has to offer.
Automatic Configuration
I downloaded the 30 day trial version of Outpost and installed it. During its setup Outpost showed me a list of the applications on my system that might require network access.
After trying various software configurations, I figured out that Outpost detects only the most common network-enabled software, such as ICQ, various browsers and email clients. If you're an expert that uses unique products, you will need to configure them manually. I think this is a good approach. Although experts with esoteric software won't benefit much from the automatic configuration, novice users certainly will. Even experts save time, as the default settings don't need to be changed.
Networks to which my computer is connected were also easily detected with no adjustments needed by me. Again, separate approaches to users with different skill levels let everybody benefit. Experts probably find the manual setting of IP addresses, network masks and gateways useful, while novices simply have to click the Detect button.
In general, Outpost provides a surprisingly wide variety of settings, yet doesn't require much effort from the user to configure them. This product is complex and sophisticated, but it installs with an optimum default configuration that is automatically adjusted to the user's system. An expert finds a rich field of settings that let him fine-tune almost every aspect of the program; a rookie is simply presented an optimal configuration right out of the box.
Continue to Part II
|
|
