Sygate Personal Firewall Pro - part II

by Andrew Cooper

Program settings

After the program is installed and run for the first time, it will open a pop-up window whenever it detects an attempt by a new application to access the Internet. In a prompt window, the user can allow this application to access the Internet every time it needs it, allow access this particular time (and ask the same question in the future), or block access. This is a standard procedure for Internet access-rules creation adopted in all programs of the firewall class. The Sygate firewall makes it clear and easy.

Clicking the Applications button in the main window displays a list of applications for which the access rules have already been created and stored by the program, and the user can modify them quickly afterward simply by clicking the appropriate checkbox opposite the application name.



Standard rules for the applications are created easily, but unfortunately, the more advanced rules are not so easy to create. It takes some technical expertise that novice or even intermediate users may not yet have. Below is the explanation of this thesis.

I wanted the program to block access to a specific Web site, say Google (www.google.com). First, I selected Internet Explorer from the above list and clicked the Advanced context menu. There, I could specify a "trusted" remote address (the one that will only be accessed with the program), but for my example, I needed quite the opposite: "not trusted," the site to which access will be blocked while the rest of the Internet is still accessible.



Note that all remote addresses are given in IP numbers, not in regular domain names (like, again, www.google.com), so the user has to enter Google's IPs manually. It is cumbersome to first figure out what they are and then submit the strange array of digits. This is when the program becomes technical rather than user-friendly, smart and intuitive.

I still hadn't done what I planned, but I had already made much effort. As I was determined to block that Google access (I'm not picking on Google, just took it as an example, it's top search engine and should be known to any Internet user), I went to Tools--> Advanced Rules tab and got it done there. Ooh, so tiresome.



Can you see the numbers above? I had to launch a ping service to determine Google's IPs.

Useful options

In the Options window, a couple of items deserve our attention: the option to password-protect the user's settings and the Enable DLL Authentication option. These are good features, and I chose both. All the rest of the options are set perfectly by a default configuration and do not require any additional user involvement.

Program by itself

As all firewalls I review are tested with leak tests, Sygate's program, of course, had to endure the same ordeal. I have to say it came out as quite mediocre, successfully passing fewer than half of the trials.



That meant it couldn't guarantee complete protection even against known offenses, let alone new and not-promoted attack simulations. So on the security side of the "security product," the company has to do more to be more potent in the wake of recent growth in hackers' malicious activity.

Moreover, the program is a pure firewall, meaning that it doesn't offer much more than just creating a protective barrier between the user's PC and the Internet. Some competitors have gone a bit further and offer Internet content filtering, script blocking policies and enhanced usability. Maybe in future releases, Sygate will add some of these features to make its product more appealing.

Verdict



This simple and classic firewall is undoubtedly better than the one embedded in Windows but lags behind some of the best the competition can offer. Its leak-test pass rate of only 50 percent, in combination with somewhat awkward technical issues, makes the product require future improvements to be able to better resist hackers' advancements.

Developer's web site: www.sygate.com
Download link: http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_pro.htm

Back to Part I