Outpost Pro/Look N Stop question...

I'm not going to make this a "Whats your favorite between the two" type of question, theres just way too much to determine as to why a certain program is a "favorite"
I'm thinking about giving each program a trial run, that way I will be able to make my own decision on which one to choose between the two if I decide to buy one of them.
What I would like to know from the users of each firewall program is what do you think are the positives and negatives or likes and dislikes of the firewall you are using?

 

I have licenses for both ,but i use kerio 2.15 .Which would i choose?.Well if everything went according to plan , then id choose outpost, simply because of its ease of use.....rules wizard mode etc.Even if you are familiar with advanced rule making, i think you,d stumble trying to input one into look n stop (and the terminolgy doesnt help),though a few may disagree.The main pro for look n stop is its very small foot print , but i felt that i didnt sort of control it ,or understand it like i could with outpost ( a more learned person might not have this problem).Outpost of course also has the " benefit" of certain plugins like anti spyware ,adblocking etc.Personaly i think the adblocking is pretty good ,but the antispyware plugin isnt up to much.Out of the two i think,generally, look n stop has the best chance of getting on with other applications i.e no conflicts,whereas outpost can sometimes be problematic depending on a users setup.In a nutshell (and its only my personal opinion) ,if outpost performed well on my system (i experience crashes with it) then id choose outpost first.Look n stop has never caused a crash , but ive never felt in control of it ,and this has always put me off it slightly.Use the full trial period for both and dont be tempted to buy after a day or two,and see which performs better on your pc.Firewall wise ,theres not a lot between them.
ellison

 

ellison64 has valid points especially:

I personally found LnS easier to work with. I love the feature were I can start a program, look in the log to see what port was blocked and then make the allow rule for that port only with a click, instead of looking in the log to see what was blocked and then go through a lengthy rule making procedure.

I did have problem with OP being inconsistent in the log. For example the logs showed it blocked its own rules, rules that I have made to allow something . I sort of lost confidence of what it reported to me. And no one could explain it, so I decided to try something else.
I have not used OP in almost a year, so I am sure it has been fixed by now. And I found the rule making a bit complicated compared to LnS. I guess that is just a matter of taste, I´m sure other OP users disagree
For me OP was a bit bloated cause I had no need for adblock, activex, script blocking and so on. I just wanted a plain Firewall. The fact that LnS doesnt have an subscription fee every year, you pay once that´s it, was another reason. The drawback is that LnS doesnt get updated as fast. But that doesnt mean that LnS is out of date in any way, so that is not really a problem.
Some would say: "if it aint broke - dont fix it" ah...well, it does have some glitches of course, for example an enabled DEP in Athlon 64 and .dll injection protection in LnS dont work well together and have not been fixed yet (as far as I know)

Again: You better try both to see which one does feel best for you. There is always gonna be people that dont like this and that in any application, but when it comes to these two programs doing their job as firewalls they are both very good.

*edit* typos

 

Thanks.
I'm going to download OP first, but what's with the plug ins like the anti spyware, etc.?
Can this be turned off?
I have no need for that since I have other programs that take care of the spyware and malware.
I just want a good firewall.

 

Yes you can turn it off. I did it with all of plugins as I use other software instead, or needn't their functionality.

 

Well there is no use in disabling the antispyware in op since u should always have layered protection when it comes to spyware but that is up to you.
positives of op= easy rule creation, a lot of plug ins, upgrades regularl like once a day.
cons of op=forum is kinda abandoned but people do reply to your questions, superstealth plug in was last updated in 2001 and if you install it comprimises op by not letting it start at all, issue with memory usage u must open and then minimize outpost for the memory usage to go dwn by 10k hope thats fixed in the next version.
all in all its a good firewall and its easy preset configurator is excellent. But the outdated plug in and the minimizing issue might scare you. I give i a 5 out of 5.

 

about the superstealth plugin, with the latest attack detection plugin in OP v3, that plugin is no longer necessary. anyways like the others have said, just try both firewalls and see which u like better.

 

wolfeyes --->

1. Outpost forum is not abandoned. I see many threads and answers to them every day.

2. Memory usage issue is not an Outpost issue. Try to do this with any other application that is running in background and does not have a separete GUI process and you will see the same result. It is some kind of Windows memory usage reporting bug.

 

One can not only turn them off also remove them entirely. There is no yearly "subscription fee" as reported. Once you buy the firewall you can use it indefinitely. There is a limit to how long you may recieve program updates without an additional payment. This is where some confusion about a yearly fee probably comes from.

 

LnS is NOT an easy firewall to configure . Outpost is much easier . As for the antispyware feature : I would turn it off . It pulls resources and other stand alone AS products are better at this point . LnS is light and a good firewall overall . Outpost has more features and is easier to work with when creating rules .