free smoothwall firewall for linux

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Free Open Source Firewall - SmoothWall Express 2.0
_POSTEDON 2003-12-12 10:08:07 by Linux Format Admin   

Placebo writes "SMOOTHWALL RELEASES SMOOTHWALL EXPRESS VERSION 2.0
Open Source firewall for home users

December 8th 2003 – Internet security specialist, SmoothWall Limited, today announced the release of SmoothWall Express 2.0, the latest version of the popular Open Source firewall. This new product builds on the SmoothWall tradition that has seen hundreds of thousands of SmoothWall firewalls installed worldwide. Like all SmoothWall products, Express is designed for ease of use and requires absolutely no knowledge of Linux to install or configure.

“This new version of SmoothWall Express, jointly developed by the SmoothWall Open Source Project and SmoothWall Ltd. is a sign of our commitment to the Open Source community,” said Lawrence Manning, development director of SmoothWall Ltd. “As a company that specialises in internet security and was founded out of the Open Source movement, we are pleased to be able to give back to the community and help make the internet a safer place for all.”



SmoothWall Express 2.0 has all the features of previous SmoothWall Open Source versions, along with a host of new improvements. Many of these are a direct result of contributions, ideas and feedback from the thousands of users who tested the beta versions of SmoothWall Express. Several of the new features were originally developed for SmoothWall Corporate Server and have been re-licensed as Open Source. The enhancements include:

· Ease of Configuration – Improvements to the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and the defaulting of many settings to aid novice users.
· Documentation – Totally new documentation, including a Quick Start Guide along with comprehensive Installation and Administration manuals.
· Stateful inspection – The use of the Linux 2.4 kernel provides stateful inspection which maximises security and facilitates the handling of complex protocols.
· Broadband – Support for many more DSL modems.
· Networking – Additional IP networking diagnostics tools, DHCP static address assignment, support for additional Dynamic DNS providers along with defence mechanisms against Denial of Service attacks.
· New IP block page – Create a list of public IP addresses that are to be blocked from accessing any computers on the local networks protected by SmoothWall Express.
· Back up – Backup the SmoothWall Express configuration information to a floppy disk.

SmoothWall Express turns a PC* with an Intel compatible processor into a dedicated firewall and internet gateway, providing safe internet access for the user computers on the local network. SmoothWall Express defends users against the myriad of crackers, hackers and script kiddies who are constantly looking for vulnerable computers, often for the pure fun of compromising a system but increasingly as a temporary home for their spam or pornography distribution.

SmoothWall Express is licensed under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL). It is available to download free of charge from the www.smoothwall.org website and numerous mirror sites worldwide.

SmoothWall Ltd. financially supports the Open Source Project.

* Minimum hardware specification: i486SX (or compatible) processor, 32 MB RAM and a 512 MB Hard Disk Drive.

- Ends -
About SmoothWall Limited
SmoothWall Ltd. is an internet security software provider founded in 2001 to address the void in the security market between simple feature and user limited "black boxes" and "big iron" solutions from the major security vendors. With its specialist development team, SmoothWall has harnessed the technical expertise of the Open Source arena to develop a suite of firewall, virtual private network (VPN) and content filtering security solutions for education, SME and large corporate organisations.

Based in the United Kingdom, with offices in Leeds and Southampton, SmoothWall delivers global security solutions through a worldwide support network, with representation in the USA, Canada, the Caribbean, South America, Malaysia, Australia, Germany and across Europe. With a user base spanning home users, small business and non-profit organisations through schools and universities to major corporations, hundreds of thousands of networks rely upon SmoothWall protection. For more information visit: www.smoothwall.net.


About the SmoothWall Open Source Project
The SmoothWall Open Source Project was formed in the summer of 2000 to create a simple to use firewall. Based on GNU/Linux, the team created a lightweight, hardened system that was quick to download and easy to install and administer. Almost immediately became extremely popular and the SmoothWall Project grew to become one of the major Open Source projects. For more information visit: www.smoothwall.org.


For further information please contact:
Craig Brophy or Debby Penton, Wildfire PR
Tel: 01932 783838
Email: craigb@wildfirepr.co.uk
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