anyone heard of Online Armour?

Hi Mike,

Congratulations on the forthcoming release of your new product. Wishing you, and the rest of your company, a successful rollout. Good luck.

Regards,
Rich

 

Sounds like a busy weekend at TallEmu town!

Best wishes too for your business endeavors with Online Armor. Thus far, it looks quite impressive.

 

Good luck, this looks like very promising program.

btw. Maybe you should put up a note on your website that you dont issue any evaluation licences right now while you are moving?
I mean, if you get too many requests for it now, I guess you have your hands full of carrying computers ..just a tip. I will test this program as soon as the key arrives and surely buy it if it meets my requirements.

 

After reading about OA here, Mike was nice enough to send me a license to test . Install went smooth, and so far no issues/conflicts with my other security software, which includes, PG, Ewido, BoClean, NIS, Giant AS, Regdefend, Spywareguard. Do have the same issues with no connect (last night) and reverting to a trial copy. Looks like a keeper. Hope they have discounts for those of us with multiple computers.

 

On the connection - its because I've disabled Auto Update - this can be safely ignored... on the discounts - we will - this is still being worked out in conjunction with our North American publisher... announcement coming in a day or so.

Cheers


Mike

 

Great news on the discount. One can never have too many computers. (At least I feel that way most of the time.)

 

Hi Vikorr,

Sorry - I missed this one. Currently it's possible to multi-select sites, and then get one warning. I think as part of a sites overhaul, we'll look at this again... I'm looking to consolidate "Protected Sites" with "Trusted Sites" and add a new feature "Blocked sites".

Incidentally, you can order by trust status or site name by clicking on the top columns.


Mike

 

I suggest not using the label "Trusted Sites" because it kinda implies the same sites as in IE "Trusted Sites" (https). JMO

 

What name would you use then ?

Admittedly, when I originally saw the name, I thought it would import my trusted sites from IE.

Still, I personally can't think of any more appropriate name. Safe Sites ?

 

I was going to go the MS Route and have "My Websites" - which would then have a status of : Unknown, Not Trusted, Trusted, Protected, Blocked.

Mike

 

How about Allowed Sites ?

You're up late/early Mike, not having nighmares about all this i hope lol.

StevieO

 

Heheh... its only 5:34pm here at the moment.... so far everything seems to be going smoothly, but issuing of new licence keys is going to be a PITA Still, only have to do it once and then we'll have a nice separate "live" and "beta" system.


Mike

 

BTW - allowed won't work - you can still visit "untrusted" sites, its just they arent allowed to use certain features and you don't get prompts. It works like this:

* Trusted - can do what it wants (within reason)
* NOT trusted - can't do anything
* Unknown - prompt on potential danger.

So, you would put your favorite porn sites into Not trusted - and view safely.


Mike

 

I like that idea

 

Gud day then cobber lol

How about this then.

* Trusted - can do anything
* Allowed - can do what it wants (within reason)
* NOT trusted - can't do anything
* Unknown - prompt on potential danger.


StevieO

 

If we do it this way, then it becomes possible to extend the number of categories that we have. It's a short step forward to then add "ad servers", "porn servers" to give even nicer control of things.

My concern there is that OA is not supposed to be doing content filtering - depsite the ease of adding these new features, feature creep is a slippery slope as our content filtering would then get (naturally) compared to specialists.

Anyhow, these are things to discuss and resolve with my team and the Online Armor community as it grows.


Mike

 

Hey StevieO

I don't think that works - for me, there isn't enough of a distinction (in English) between allowed and trusted. I had to re-read my post and yours in order to understand properly what was proposed.

Trusted, Restricted (thanks Notok by PM!) , Unknown and Blocked all have very clear plain-english understanding.... or, put it this way... try explaining the difference between an allowed and trusted site to your mum. Repeatedly. That's what I go thru every time we tweak something (not literally, thankfully).

Unknown sites - we dont know the classification
Trusted - The priests of the internet
Restricted - I want to look, but not touch
Blocked - Not a chance!


Mike

 

Hi

At what point does Online Armour start at bootup?

Is it before user logs in? IS it before all other drivers are being loaded at Kernel level?

Just curious.

controler

 

Hi Mike

Another GUI request - and please forgive me if it's somewhere on that 40page to do list of yours

In your little popup screens. Can you please include a hyperlink to a generic explanation of the popup.

By that I mean, (for example) if the popup is in relaiton to a Java Applet, have a link that then explains why a Java Applet can be dangerous...so the Mums & Dads don't panic

I know I had this criticism of Process Guard (re the MS executables that would pop up, but you wouldn't even know that much, just the exe name), and a similar criticism of Prevx Pro (even though it allowed people access to PAWS data, I found that highly suspect...which it turns out I was right to be, lol). I feel that generic explanations of popups increases the userfriendliness of HIPS dramatically <makes them less work/less scary>, but very few seem to do it <not having a go at OA as it's still in beta/infancy>

Also, and I know this is perhaps finetuning things, but I notice that once a Java Applet is allowed, the website becomes trusted (which doesn't bother me, because I only allow java on my trusted sites), but some may want the Java Applet, but not the rest of the website to be trusted <just something to consider>.

 

Hi Mike

I while back in this thread, you were asking people whether or not we thought OA should have a trial/free version offered. If you've already made up your mind what you were going to do, just ignore this post

Have you thought of negotiating with an ISP to supply them a 1yr licence to provide OA to their customers?

No idea what price you would offer it to an ISP at <if any>, as it would depend on what value you see in return.

This way no one expects it for free (after the year that is), a large number of people get to see it's effectiveness <easy marketting>, some will talk about it to their friends <more marketting>, and you will get another marketting tool (ISP relies on OA to protect it's clients), and then at the end of the year, many people will be inclined to pay for a renewal licence.

I know you said OA would work even if a person did not wish to continue subscribing (after having paid for it)...so in this case, perhaps a special build for the ISP clients, so that at the end of the 1st year... once they have paid for a new subscription (seeing as they get it for 'free' from their ISP), it reverts to the normal OA <but if they choose not to renew their subscription, it could then expire at the end of the year>

The ISP's benefit would be providing their customers with a much more secure online experience, increasing their reputation and goodwill.

Same idea could work for computer retailers I suppose.

 

That wouldn't be a bad idea, Vikorr...although a year sounds like kind of a long time period to offer a customer a "trial" product....90 days seems about standard for most. And perhaps rather than reaching out to ISPs (like America On-Line, Earthlink, etc), actual computer manufacturers would be a better possibility (Dell, Hewlett Packard, etc.).

Of course, this is all "putting the cart ahead of the horse", because the first thing to do is have a successful business and home user product launch. My guess is that most ISPs and PC builders would prefer to see a little bit of a successful track record before they agree to incorporate any type of software into their products........

 

Hi Vikorr

Basically we came to the conclusion no free versions. We want to provide top-notch support, and having 20 million users who don't pay doesn't help us do that, but it does stretch resources - people and infrastructure.

Yes - thought about offering to ISP's - if anyone has any contacts or would like to be a commission-only sales rep, drop me an email (seriously!) - particularly if you are located in UK/Europe. In North America, we have a exclusive distribution arrangement so I could flick interested parties over to him (coincidentally, also named Mike).



Mike

 

@Mike Nash
I am no expert!

Thankyou for participating so enthusiastically and effectively in this thread.
OA Seems to be what will become part of my frontline software.

I bet I will love the "out of the box" functionality.

Am wondering how OA would fare/has fared? against the standard "kareldjag" tests such as http://kareldjag.over-blog.com/3-categorie-86447.htm.

You and others may already have done these tests (might have missed it amongst the 300 posts!) and I appreciate this type of testing is not the be all and end all but it does give lower order novices like me some sort of standard to look at when all the other issues are sorted.

Much of the technical stuff has gone over my head.
These are probably the most basic hurdles you have already left behind you.

Regards.

 

Hey Mike I was doing a beta test for you guys awhile back but had to stop due to a format and didn`t put it back on my machine. In doing the beta test and all the OA to me is a great program. When is the full release going to hit the shelves? You`ve made your first sale.

 

Hey BeetleJuice,

If you remember, I changed my mind about a discount for beta users and said instead that beta testers would get a free key. Drop me an email, and you'll get yours.

The release version is ready to rock - download the new version - we're in the middle of a move to new servers, but all will be firing in a day or so. The only remaining piece is the payment gateway.


Mike