Review: Outpost Firewall Pro
Disclosure: This is another one of those paid-reviews-trying-to-pay-off-tuition things.
It’s a rather well-known fact that Microsoft’s attempts at integrating a top-notch firewall into their operating systems have come up short. If their integrated “firewall” was any good, they wouldn’t have made it so easy to disable it to use a real firewall and would have kept with Microsoft monopoly tradition making it impossible to disable. One of the most popular firewall solutions for Windows has always been ZoneAlarm.
An accurate representation of the unsecure nature of the Windows firewall.
However, I’ll be taking a look at a firewall that I haven’t heard of until recently, Agnitum’s Outpost Firewall Pro. Outpost is more than just a firewall, featuring innovative methods of preventing data theft whereby a malware application can utilize personal information from another application. Outpost Pro’s data theft prevention is part of its privacy feature set aimed at curbing identity theft. That alone is rather captivating.
And even if malware finds its way onto the system, it won’t be able to transfer any data out of the network because the ID block function lets you define and lock down blocks of text, preventing them from being removed from the machine by any electronic means — IM, web access or email correspondence.
One of the largest pet peeves of firewall software is the constant need to allow or deny certain connections to be made. After a while, most firewalls “learn” what connections are okay to make and tend to bug you less often with allow or deny requests. Outpost Pro gets around this by including predefined rules for known applications, in addition to something I really like, Entertainment mode.
Once you enter Entertainment mode, which can be automatically triggered once certain applications are launched, you can enjoy full-screen gaming or movie watching without being interrupted by Outpost. Over spring break I installed Counter-Strike: Source (an old but great FPS game) on my mom’s computer, only to be annoyed to discover when I went full-screen the Windows firewall popped up and eventually froze CS:S. Entertainment mode is definitely a welcomed feature in Outpost Pro.
Outpost Pro is a complete security suite and includes an on-demand spyware scanner that can be run whenever you like, similar to Ad-Aware. However, I also found that the scanner ran in the background, detecting vulnerabilities on the fly. It (annoyingly) came up several times by itself when it discovered standard tracking cookies from MSN and similar sites.
The main interface for Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro.
The interface is intuitive and designed as if it were part of Windows. I didn’t spend time looking for certain settings and was able to go on with my regular tasks normally. I enjoyed looking at the section that displayed network activity and open ports used by applications in real-time. In the above screenshot you can see a portion of the left pane devoted to plug-ins. Outpost Pro is plug-in friendly and allows you to easily extend its security functionality.
Thoughts
For a company and product that I have never heard of, I was impressed with what Outpost Pro offered. Installation took just a minute and I had it running quickly. No post-install configuration was necessary at all; Outpost Pro has pre-set configurations for users. At a price of $39.95 including a year of updates and support, Outpost Pro is competitively priced for being an almost all-in-one security suite protecting you against spyware, data stealing malware, intrusion, malevolent email attachments and more. Outpost Pro is not an alternative to your anti-virus of choice, it’s a complement. Outpost is not currently available for Vista but if you purchase a license your license will be automatically upgraded to a Vista-compatible version of Outpost Pro when it’s released.
Personally, I don’t use anti-virus or firewall software when I’m on a PC. I’m prefer the ignorance-is-bliss route, am always behind a firewalled router with NAT and practice common sense. However, I would recommend Outpost Pro to family members looking to secure their PC. That recommendation will also probably go over better than my “you don’t need Norton, just use common sense” excuse .
Who pays PStam to write a software review for a Windows app, honestly?
For the record I use Outpost in addition to my firewalled router for close to two years now, having switched from BlackIce- while it can be bothersome at times it’s not a bad process to have taking up CPU time- something it does very little of, to be honest-
Paul did my buddy Ashkan get ahold of you about the Valley?
@Matt, yup he emailed me and I told him all about the valley. =)
Sorry, not regarding this, but your flickr on/off isn’t functioning well. I was reading this post and clicked ‘on’ but then was taken to your home page. I clicked ‘on’ again, and the page reloaded showing your flickr slide show.
+1 for the ignorance is bliss route, 5 years with no anti virus and no problems on windows :)
Hm, I guess after working for the ‘GeekSquad’-type organization for my school for two years, I can’t ever condone ignorance-is-bliss approach to security. You’re gonna get zapped sooner or later! Trust me. That said, your chances is quite small if you stick to Firefox (or IE7) and keep your Windows system constantly updated.
I’m interested about Vista’s firewall upgrades, if any. We won’t be distributing Vista at PITT until April or maybe even after spring semester is over, so I won’t get to play with it for a while (being a Mac user and all, I couldn’t care less, but being a geek and a computer support person, I kinda want to know!).
Dimitry
I totally dislike software firewalls. ZoneAlarm has become bloatware over the years. Hardware firewalls or routers are much better. You can protect every computer on your network, instead of having to setup a software firewall on every computer. Plus hardware firewalls act as a first line of defense for your network and can stop DOS attacks and other junk like that.
Sorry, forgot to add… nice write up.
Arjun, that’s why I have the (beta) tag there. Sometimes it takes two clicks to get it to work. It’s my first time working with cookies in PHP so it only kinda works. ;-P
I had guessed that, but going to the homepage seemed weird.
Of course when Microsoft up the quality of firewall in Vista, they get slammed with lawsuits from the firewall vendors - somethings wrong when a company making a better product that meets the demands of consumers, it’s labeled as an unfair competitive advantage and a monopoly abuse. Don’t get me wrong, I see the argument both ways, but when it’s the consumers getting burned by paying for Vista, then paying to secure Vista, I think we have to let the candlestick makers burn.
That said; get a real NAT+Firewall box at the modem, keep the patches current (which can be automatic now), use common sense (no one in Nigeria is giving you 2 million dollars), and you’re not going to have issue. When you think something may be amiss, check out a free tool like AVG.
I don’t have any problems, but then again I’m also not grabbing everything i can from Kazaa so mileage may vary.
I have Outpost Pro installed on mine and all my family members PC’s. It does an excellent job, and I honestly can’t complain about a single thing with it. It takes up 40mb RAM as I check my process explorer right now, which isn’t anything to sneeze at, but it’s pretty low, and it takes negligible CPU cycles. Highly recommended. Great write-up Paul.
40mb RAM and is it a limit?
Now it’s showing 48MB. I haven’t kept track of really but my point is, it has a very small footprint.
This is something to look into. I am giving Comodo Personal Firewal a go (it’s free) and it seems to be performing ok. My favorite firewall to date though is Sygate personal.
Great software firewall been using for years now. Good addon to your router that helps protect from outgoing/incoming requests.
I like it much better then ZoneAlarm over packed software.
Also using Ad-Aware Pro + AvG Anti-Virus too!