Agnitum Outpost 4 .... dumped

[Carol Haynes]

Given that I am still in the process of reinstalling my system I thought it was about time I reinstalled Outpost and NOD32.

As I haven't had any previous Outpost versions I thought it would be worth having a bash at Outpost 4 again. Looking at Agnitum's website there have been a lot of new builds since the last time I tried it so I was expecting better things.

First thing I noticed was that my nippy/zippy machine suddenly turned into a slug - pages took ages to load and MSN Messenger (yes I know!) took forever to connect and generally timed out on the first couple of attempts. I was completely blitzed with prompts about SVCHOST (how the hell do you tell whether these net access demands are genuine or not?) - and these continued even after using it for a day, and after every reboot.

To cap it all I started getting random reboots - no errors, nothing logged just BAM restart ...

So to summarise - stable machine became unstable (random reboots), startup became extremely slow and tedious, browsing webpages slowed down to about 25% of the previous speed.

For now I have gone back to Windows Firewall - and I think I might just stay there since my router has a built in firewall too. I still have NOD32 running and I have installed AdMuncher and now my system is solid and fast again. Looks like I am back to the drawing board with firewalls - I certainly don't want the current incarnation of junk on my machine. What is really annoying is that I just renewed my subscription!

Anyone else experienced this?

PS. The Agnitum uninstaller leaves a lot of junk in the registry too - which is plain ridiculous given that it demands a reboot anyway - and you have to manually reactivate Windows Firewall.

[AdIyhc]

Is MSN Messenger also Windows Live Messenger?
Some people have experienced problems with it too.

[mouser]

ive been using Outpost 3 and have been very happy with it; tried 4 when it first came out and went back to 3.

[Carol Haynes]

My other computer has version 3 loaded and it too suffers from incredibly slow startup times.

I was really quite shocked at the impact Outpost 4 had on startup and system performance - it was more than noticeable. I also didn't install it in maximum security mode - so heaven knows what it will be like if you want to beef it up to pass leaktests!

It is really strange but it feels like a completely different machine using Windows Firewall - I know it has shortcomings but I'm not sure it is worth the price to have Outpost installed.

[superboyac]

Yeah, Carol, I'm with you here.  Every time I try Outpost (and it's been several tries) I get nothing but headaches.  Here's my post from a few days ago:

Ugh, I tried using Outpost again.  What a painful experience.  I don't know what it is, maybe it's interaction with Kaspersky or something, even though I read about how to make them coexist together properly.  Every time I try to use Outpost, it results in nothing but problems...slow internet, webpages not displaying, computer slowing down, computer working too hard, antivirus working too hard.  Geez.  I give up, I don't need this, do I?

Years ago, i used Zone Alarm and even though I got rid of it for the bloat, it's actual firewall functions never gave me any problems.  I'd train it a little in the beginning and that was it.  But then I tried Outpost because it was supposed to be better and lightweight, but it was a headache.  As I got better with computers, I keep trying it again like every year it seems like, and no luck.  I don't even think I need a firewall.

I've just decided to forget about firewalls for now, besides, my antivirus program has a firewall on it that I can turn on whenever I want to.

[MerleOne]

I recently dumped my FWall for Sygate personal firewall and had no problem so far.  I even got the link from somewhere in this forum : http://www.tucows.com/preview/213160.

And for antivirus, I can recommend a 12-month free solution (it just costs an e-mail address or so) : http://home3.ca.com/microsoft/

No slowdown from either the fwall or the AV.

[dk70]

Did you disable router firewall first? Dont know if it helps with Outpost but no reason to run 2 firewalls, can conflict according to Netgear http://kbserver.netgear.com/kb_web_files/n101177.asp

[Carol Haynes]

No I didn't, but I feel happier leaving the NetGear firewall running as it has no impact on my PC speed!

[tymrwt33]

Dumped Outpost 4 from my laptop for the same reasons Carol Haynes did. Too sluggish and too intrusive.

[Curt]

(...)
So to summarise - stable machine became unstable (random reboots), startup became extremely slow and tedious, browsing webpages slowed down to about 25% of the previous speed.
(...)
What is really annoying is that I just renewed my subscription!

I was surprised to read all this. I have been using Outpost for some years now (today: Outpost Pro 4) - and must admit it took some time to learn how to use it - but the scenario you're describing, is not my experience.

If you trust your various programs you should add them (including Antivirus, etc.) to "Trusted applications" in Options > Application..., or "Partially allowed", and Outpost will run smoothly.

It is my understanding and believe that Outpost Pro is the most effecient firewall you can have for a home-pc. Even more if you install all the various plug-ins. It takes some effort to 'adjust' , but the users forum will help you a lot: http://outpostfirewall.com/forum/

+ an old guide: http://www.outpostfirewall.com/guide/index.htm

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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..)

[Carol Haynes]

Symantec NIS used to have that - don't know if still does. You register the info you want to protect in the application and then whenever that is sent over a network connection you have to confirm it is genuine.

What I think is needed is a tiny standalone product that would work with any security app installed.

[mhb]

(it could be written as an agnitum outpost firewall addon by the way

Actually, the new version of Outpost has this feature. You can define specific data strings which are not allowed to leave your system as you can see in the screenshot.

[attachthumb=#]

And in contrary to all of you I never had any issue with it... running nice and smoothly, just giving feedback on unauthorized actions.

Greetings...

    ... Marc

[mouser]

ah, nice find marc 

now we see perhaps why agnitum is still so highly regarded by so many - it really does have a great feature set and a nice interface.  they just need to improve the quality control and pre-release testing.

[2stepsback]

And for antivirus, I can recommend a 12-month free solution (it just costs an e-mail address or so) : http://home3.ca.com/microsoft/

See this: http://home3.ca.com/Microsoft/Default.aspx?sc_lang=en-US
You can try their CA Internet Security Suite 2007 for free
(a) for 90 days if you have XP, and,
(b) for 1 year if you have Vista

You cannot download a trial version of CA AntiVirus for free
It costs USD 20 . But that's fine by me

This is what they have to say:

CA Anti-Virus 2007
Protect 1 to 3 PC's
• Detects 100% of Viruses** 
• Real-Time Protection 
• Automatic Email Scanning 

**Certified by Virus Bulletin.

The banner on top also says: "98% of the Fortune 500 trust CA. You can too"
If that's true, this should go into the Found Deals section, if it's not already there.

But it's not very clear to me whether or not they have LiveUpdate-like without which really the product has no meaning. That's a given, I guess.

Views, opinions, experiences?

2stepsback