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Outpost Firewall
Manufacturer: Agnitum
version 1.0
Price: Free
Website: http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpost/

In these days where the security of your computer is foremost in the majority of minds; It is advisable to have some protection against intruders wanting to do dastardly deeds to your prized possession!

The installing of some kind of Anti-Virus software should be the minimum security that anyone has. Viruses alone are not the only threat. Everyone from the innocent addvertising company down to the downright devious can secretly burrow into the depths of your machine leaving all sorts of unwanted stuff behind to compromise your security. A firewall installed on your machine can effectively make your presence on the world wide web invisible to anyone wanting to attack your computer. There are many such Firewalls available for use. For the purposes of this review I will give my opinion on just one.

AGNITUM Ltd have just made available one such application available. The OUTPOST Firewall comes in a variety of flavours. In recent publicity it claims all manner of good things are included to make your surfing as trouble free and as secure as possible. The version I am reviewing is the 'freebie' download version 1.0

OUTPOST by default effectively BLOCKS all banners and popup ads appearing and has a database of known advertising spammers and trackers that regularly leave their footprints on computers without firewall security.
Before embarking on my surfing experience to 'level the playing field' I used the AD-AWARE utility to make sure no advertising cookies or other nasties had already taken up residence on my 'puter. Cleaning out everything it found I then emptied the Cookies Folder and deleted all my History contents. I also ran BHO Captor to make sure nothing was 'hooked' into Internet Explorer prior to my mission.

All present and correct I logged onto the net to test the ability of Outpost........'would it do exactly as it said on the tin' I wondered? With only AVG and OUTPOST in the sys tray I began my journey.

Connection established and several prompts from Outpost later to allow one thing or another access to the net, BT Openworld homepage arrived on screen. "That was slow even for BT" says I pressing on. My second port of call was to SHIELDS UP to download their security utility that tries its damndest to break into your computer to check if your firewall is all it's cracked up to be. This was my first problem. Constant 404 'page not found' errors. ."Oh BT playing up again uh" disconnected from the dialler and logged online with a DUN connection this time. Still no joy in downloading the app 404's again. "Strange?" I then shut down OUTPOST and tried again - EUREKA! Application downloaded. I once more logged off installed the app and rebooted for good measure. Checked with AD-Aware, all clean and so far nothing's on BHOC either! GOOD. Used the DUN to log back online and then set the Shields Up software into motion. FULL STEALTH MODE was the result port139 and the 'secret server' NETBIOS were also shown to be secure. No one was getting past OUTPOST and I was invisible !

Given that with BT you are cut off after a 2 hour stint I pressed onward. Oh tedium! After 58 minutes of my allotted time I had managed to view just 3 sites, MSN, The Register and Howstuffworks.com. Each and every site took an age to download. When the page finally appeared it was filled with little crossed boxes where graphics should be and had "[AD] dotted about where adverts used to be! On 'mouse-over' of these AD's the links were still intact and if you wished you could use them to get your name on some spam list or other no doubt! I resisted the temptation!

1 hour and ten minutes had elapsed and I was getting bored with the slow responses so I logged off. I then ran AD-Aware again and lo! 'Doubleclick' and 'Valueclick' spyware had infiltrated the inbuilt firewall spyware blocker despite the fact that it says in the interface that these sites won't get in! Cleanout time again! I then, (for comparison purposes) disabled OUTPOST and activated ZONE-ALARM which I regularly use and set out on the same path as I had with OUTPOST. Ahh the FREEDOM! Fast loading of pages, ads instead of abbreviations and pikkies where they should be. Oh, and I got the infamous 'pop-behind' advert on entering the MSN portal too (something I missed having to get rid of whilst running under Outpost's shield)! Tour completed I once more logged offline. ZONE ALARM doesn't have the inbuilt "spyware stomper" that OUTPOST has so I wasn't surprised to find the Value and doubleclick entries in the AD-AWARE search.
I repeated the tests twice more allowing a break for a cuppa between each journey, but this time opened up to three browser windows at a time for the sites I was using in the 'experiment'. At each test (6 in all) my connection speed was shown to be on average 35.4 and I was using a standard 56k modem on a telephone line used exclusively for surfing.

Finally I must add that to the 'newbie' or casual surfer the OUTPOST interface whilst fully configurable by the user was found to be quite daunting on my exploration of it. I am no 'computer GEEK' and found with a lot of its contents I was out of my depth with what would be the best settings for my computer, so I let the default settings rule. Definitely 'user UN-friendly' in my humble opinion. There were far too many user config options that if improperly selected may make the firewall ineffective. Although it does contain a comprehensive HELP section to enable a user to configure the programme, those not prepared too read such things and let the programme run under it's default settings I believe would soon consign the proggy to the 'waste bin'. The slowness of downloading pages I experienced in my tests, would (again in my opinion) be a major factor in my NOT purchasing the full version or even using the free software again. Things maybe better on an ADSL connection or even on a better spec machine, but to those that have a 'basic' set-up, I wouldn't recommend this programme in it's current form to anyone else, preferring the simple, easier to use and less constrictive Zone Alarm instead. Perhaps if I had allowed the program more time to 'bed in' things may have improved and speeded up, but from

MR or MRS A.N.Other's point of view Sorry AGNITUM - it's a 'thumbs down' from this surfer!

My conclusions:

SECURITY:
OUTPOST 10/10 - .ZONE-ALARM 10/10

EASE OF USE (INTERFACE):

OUTPOST 4/10 - ZONE-ALARM 10/10
THE 'SURFING EXPERIENCE'
OUTPOST 3/10 - ZONE-ALARM 10/10

Sent in by Bluetracker

Please note: The views expressed in this review are not necessarily the views of 'The Technology Vault'

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