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Agnitum Outpost 4 .... dumped
Carol Haynes:
Doesn't appear to be just my experience ... having said that I have been using version 3 for a while on my old system and startup was slow (esp. getting connected to the internet and IM clients almost always failed to connect first time even though they were in the trusted apps list).
It has been a long time since I ran a system without a third party FW app - I must say I am amazed at how much faster my system is with Windows FW & a hardware router FW.
oBFusC8r:
Here is a fresh Leak-test analysis from some people that seem to know their stuff. It is interesting to see that Comodo comes out at top while some more widespread ones, like Norton and F-Secure perform so poorly (not that much a surprise though...).
http://www.matousec.com/projects/windows-personal-firewall-analysis/leak-tests-results.php
They accuse Agnitum of cheating a bit:
Another important result of our tests is firewall scoring against FPR. FPR stands for Fake Protection Revealer. This leak-test was implemented to reveal cheating on leak-tests. Outpost Firewall PRO 4.0 (971.584.079) was convicted of such cheating.
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Here is a review of Agnitum Outpost 4
http://www.matousec.com/projects/windows-personal-firewall-analysis/Outpost-Firewall-PRO-4.0-(964.582.059)/
Some interesting quotes regarding security/stability:
Not only the design but also its implementation is imperfect in Outpost. We have found components of Outpost that are more buggy than working. All these results in a very unstable application that is likely to have compatibility problems with common security software. Because of this, we can not recommend using Outpost.
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However, 42% performance reduction while working with files, registry and processes can be very painful. This is probably caused by the extensive number of hooks that Outpost implements to fulfil its security design. Hardware requirements of Outpost Firewall PRO are bigger than requirements of competitive products.
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In the end Agnitum Outpost ended up at 2nd place after ZoneAlarm in their test of the five top personal firewalls.
Being an Outpost user for years I have had my share of problems with this application ( BSODs and random reboots for example ) and I am still using v3.5 due to all the bad things I have read about 4.0. I am actually considering to migrate to Comodo in the near future.
mouser:
it's interesting to read so much agreement that v4 (and really every new release they've made) is buggy. they seem to have some quality control issues. i am alsos till using v3 and it seems quite stable and good to me - but clearly they need to do something to fix their approach.
Carol Haynes:
What amazes me is after the list of criticism they give it second place!!! If 40% reduction is system performance (which IME seems reasonable), buggy and crash prone software that doesn't really do a good job gets second place God help us with the best of the rest!
When I recently got an email from Agnitum telling a new bug fix release was out I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and try again. Within half an hour I was getting random reboots again and having installed SpySweeper again Outpost complains that it doesn't like SpySweeper during installation (even when it isn't actually running) as 'you may experience system instability'. WTF !!! One of the most widely used and praised anti-spyware appications causes the instability - what a load of horse-sh1t. Having said that it does offer to exclude SpySweeper from its detection system (surely a security issue in itself as any software masquerading as SpySweeper could therefore bypass Outpost's security).
Anyway I am about to write to Agnitum and ask for a refund on my subscription renewal. I am not holding my breath that I will get it but it is worth a try.
Personally I am going to stick with Windows firewall with decent AV, AS and Anti-KeyLogger software running - at least I have a stable system that runs at a proper speed. Plus I am behind a Router Firewall so Windows Firewall should be decent enough for most things.
What we could really do with is a simple app that checks all outgoing data for personal information which warns you and lets you manually block such traffic. Anyone know anything like this - it would probably be about as effective as most anti-leak features anyway in practical terms.
mouser:
What we could really do with is a simple app that checks all outgoing data for personal information which warns you and lets you manually block such traffic.
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i'd like to know about such software too - i seem to remember that some firewalls had this.
(it could be written as an agnitum outpost firewall addon by the way - maybe a nice NANY project if someone is feeling brave..)
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