GesWall died ?

The homepage of the site http://www.gentlesecurity.com/ is blank since some days - or weeks, I don't know.

 

I do believe that Geswall aka Gentle Security has gone the way of many other good and promising security apps disgused here at Wilders in the past,as their website has been dormant for some time, shame really.

 

Seems to be.

 

Now I wonder how replace it.

 

Replace...? Another product? Or you no longer have the installer? I have it here (geswall.2.9.2.freeware.exe, 6.04 MB) if you want it. (Not available for download anywhere else? ) I just tried it for a couple hours last summer and, like usual, never deleted the file.

 

Could try to send them an email and ask what's going on? Hard to find contact info on the website since it's blank though.

I figure some of you must have been in contact with them before as customers so maybe somone still have the contact address around

 

Thank a lot : I don't need the installer, I have it. The problem is that GW is not updated since some years, now probably discontinued, so it's better to begin to search some other software like it.

 

I never was in contact with them. Hope someone here in Wilders is.

 

DefenseWall (32-bit) or AppGuard (32/64-bit) would probably be the closest alternatives in functionality.

 

Sandboxie or bufferzone are alternatives that may fit the bill.

Can geswall not function correctly without updates.?

Like some old firewalls that are still working correctly even though they have not been updated for years.

 

I don't like Sandboxie, and BufferZone has know issue with many programs, as OA, CIS...

About updates, also programs as GW must be developed, for exemple against new exploiting techniques, new kind of malwares..

 

Never tried AppGuard: DW, I believe, doesn't work as a pure sandboxing sw as GW does, is it ?

 

Nice JR

 

Well according to the FAQs, GeSWall isn't a sandbox as it applies policy restriction to applications rather than isolating them from the rest of the system within a separate virtual container.

http://www.gentlesecurity.com/docs/geswallfaq01.html#q4

 

I've used and still am using Geswall FREE.

I've tried Bufferzone wasn't impressed.
I have tried Defensewall,like it alot. Someday I'll try AppGuard as well.

Someday I'll abandon Geswall as well. They no longer answer emails,so that shows they dont really care or want to show any sort of support.

 

There is a difference in how a program wants to position itself and how it can be used. GeSWall "redirect" option, redirects access to file/registry/system objects, meaning it does not write/change it in the real system, but in a 'redirected' layer. This redirected layer is simular as for instance's Sandboxie's C:\Sandbox.

Strong points of GeSWall was that it used windows internal mechanism (policy restrictions), making it extremely light. Downside was: it used windows internals , for instance when copying a file from one NTFS partition to another you would loose the 'untrusted' object marker (practically moving it outof the policy container/sandbox), due to NTFS restrictions. Between Sandboxie, Safezone, Greenborder, Bufferzone it was the one with lowest system impact and lowest drag on for instance browser start.

A great application: for the nerd it had a magnitude of settings to control: I had a setup in which it worked like BufferZone for my-e-mail, worked like sandboxie for my browser and worked like DefenseWall for my media player (allowing updates of my paid digital rights).

 

To PEGR: I meant this; GW has not a real sandbox, but it isolates the applications and the state and the result are similar. With " pure " I meant that GW is not a virtualisation sw that needs a reboot.

Some years ago, in a forum an user told that he wrote about it to GentleSecurity support, and they answered that it was because if an user copy or cut an untrusted file in another partition, it means that he " trusts " the file and he's using it. This was the answer.

 

Brian told me this during beta testing of GeSWall (reason I got a lifetime lisence for free). When you copy a file the ACE is reset to standard values. But it is not relevant anymore, since GW has gone to meet other great programs like SSM.

 

Good luck getting any info from GeSWall. I've emailed them a few times with no response. Their forum was deserted even before product development ended. It's a shame too because the product was granular, rock solid, and light. I used it with avira free and both combined used about 7-8 megs of memory with very little CPU cycles or disk I/O. They kept promising a 64-bit version but that never came.

 

I don't understand why the developers/company behind GesWall would stop development and just abandon it just like that, if it really is as good as I have read about it in the many threads here on Wilders, and especially when every singel customer of GesWall seems to be a happy customer that don't want to use anything else. Isn't that what every developer dreams about, to have happy customers all the time

 

Fantastic program that got me introduced to policy programs like Defensewall, AppGuard, Bufferzone, and...well...that's about it. I tried contacting them months ago but got no response, and now their site is down, so I'd say it's dead. Probably so few people knew about it they couldn't make any money off it. I know they sold their LeakWall program to another company that turned it into Power Broker or something like that. My last experiences with it were bad, as on my Mom's 32-bit Vista laptop, it kept the latest IE and Chrome from working.

 

It never went 64 and that was why I stopped using it. For win 32 os it is still a great pgm. The problem is, all my pc's are running 64.

Ice

 

Will miss it always!