Complete Protection?

I'll check out those links, thanks!

 

Just as an aside, I had used Zone Alerm Pro for some time until the now infamous initial 4.5 (I think this is one) upgrade where performance went south, at least for a while. I really don't know if it improved as far as resource footprint since I pulled the plug on that paid version at that point, went with an Outpost family license, and never looked back.

On the topic of resource footprint, one of the supposed lightest is LooknStop, whose support forums also reside here at Wilders.

You clearly appreciate the performance/protection tradeoffs, and that's always a difficult balancing act. I tend to look at a decent SPI enabled router as critical, and a light software firewall as a comfortable added layer. Of all the things I have running, it was the last added. Of the resident programs I run (see here), I really can't imagine pulling it off for something else or to squeeze additional performance (although this is highly machine dependent). In terms of CPU cycles spent, I've more or less made the decision to handle adware, data miners, and things of that ilk after the fact. If anything, that's where I run lean (no TeaTimer, Adwatch, registry monitor, etc.). I'm comfortable doing it that way and try to mitigate things by using a well configured Firefox as my browser.

Very reasonable people will assess this configuration as somewhat exposed, other equally reasonable folks will say I'm armed to the gills. Me? It's my comfort zone at the present (naturally, subject to change under changing conditions....)

Blue

 

I also neglected to mention that I have a small wireless network in my house consisting of one desktop and one laptop. Historically when I have tried 3rd party firewalls (Mcafee and Norton) they inhibited my computers from talking with one another. (I have a partition on my desktop mapped to my laptop which is a must at this time.)

Does Outpost easily allow LAN/WAN communication? What would you guesstimate the average footprint of it is? I'm intrigued...

 

I haven't seen that problem, but I use a simple workgroup configuration with a minimal number of shared folders. When I had problems, it was simple stuff like forgetting to add the approach protocols to the network. Readily fixed.

As for footprint, Outpost on my PC now is weighing in at 13 MB, have about 20 hours of uptime and it's the fourth most CPU intensive process at just under 6 minutes (just above BOClean at 3 minutes). Right now I'm running Outpost as a pure background process. If the GUI is active, I think the RAM footprint is 30 MB or so. Doesn't really matter on my systems, the smallest has 512 MB RAM, I'm running 1 GB RAM on my system with a peak commit charge of 460 MB.

What resources do your systems have?

If you're intrigued, give the trial a whirl and go with default configuration all the way. That would be a fairly conservative use test.

Blue

PS - two of the PC's on my LAN are also wireless - no problems at all on that front

 

Actually, I took the plunge and downloaded/installed Outpost Pro trial.

It was easy to configure, and allowed my intranet traffic, seemed rather lightweight with RAM usage (5-9 MB)

I run a P4 3.06GHz HT processor, 1GB RAM.

The problem is Outpost kept my processor usage between 53-66%--continually. I left it run for 5-10 min with no drop. Unfortunately I can't run a program that is that taxing. My system with all of the resident programs I run usually sits at 1-4%. Heck, as I'm typing this in IE with windows task manager open my processor usage is maxing at 4%. I imagine it doesn't do that on your system, and it's a shame because from a usage/footprint perspective it seems like a great program.

Well, back to router/windows firewall for now. I'll keep trying though.

Thanks again!

 

Strange. Never seen anything like that. I do recall BSOD with some early builds of 2.0 in HT systems, but that was it. Sounds like it was hung in a loop. Off hand, can think of any suggestions. You did disable the Windows firewall, correct?

Blue

 

Windows firewall was automatically disabled by Outpost, but I did check.

I just chalk it up to everyone's system being different. I do believe you when you infer it's a great product. This is confirmed by message board after message board.

I figure now I'm more protected than I was two weeks ago. I'm fairly sure I have a clean system. Outpost, while it was on my system, didn't report any unusual outbound stuff. Hopefully with NOD32, BOClean, Adwatch, and Spybot all running resident I will get some sort of notification if something fishy even tries to make it's way onto my system.

Before I was using just Norton AV 2004 and on demand scans from Adaware and Spybot. (router and win firewall on of course). I'm advancing slowly but surely I suppose. Maybe if I format my system and build from fresh I'll give Outpost another try. Blue, I certainly appreciate your attention to my security situation and am very thankful for your suggestions and input.

Thanks again to Blackspear and everyone else. I'm still stunned at what a responsive and helpful forum this is. (I guess I've been snooping around the wrong forums before )

Dom

 

Yep. That's why we do trials and that's why there's no best solution for everyone.

As it is, right now you're in quite good shape and it's been my pleasure to assist where I could. Let us know if you give it another go

Blue

 

After much debate, I've tried Kerio PF. It runs well on both my desktop and laptop. I haven't decided if I want to buy or just let some functions go dead after 30 days.

It seems to get along with everything so far!

I'll keep you posted. I'll check on resource usage,etc and see if it works out.

Dom

 

Thanks for keeping us up-to-date Dom, as it helps us all to learn...

Cheers

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll give it a try!

Elray

 

My pleasure Elray.

All the best...

Cheers

 

Update...

I've tinkered with Kerio until the late hours of the night. I ended up removing it from both of my computers. It made both of them seem a bit sluggish, and prevented some apps from opening properly. I tinkered with settings, etc. with no avail--so off it came.

Back to square one: NOD32,BOClean,Adaware + Spybot residents, SpywareBlaster, IESpyads, Router SPI + Windows firewall. I haven't had any issues running even lighter than this since I've had broadband (1999)... so I will be constantly reading up here and other places to see what's new.

Good Night (or Good Morning, actually),

Dom

 

Yes, but one could also say that "many folks use ZoneAlarm without great success", that is if you want to believe the many (and I mean many) discouraging stories about ZoneAlarm. Neither did I have any positive experiences with ZoneAlarm the higher its version number.

 

Actually, I happen to be among those folks, just trying to stay positive here. Part of it is a pure numbers game - more users=more problems. How much of it is due to this alone? I have no idea. However, I can say that I was not sad when I moved on to Outpost Pro.

Blue