How does ESS firewall compare with Outpost?

I am particularly interested in how flexible the application rules are.

On Outpost it is possible to enable or disable a rule according to the time of day. For example, block MSN Messenger before 6pm Monday to Friday.
Is this possible in ESS?

One thing that is not possible in Outpost, but would be very useful, is the ability to enable or disable a rule according to the currently logged on user.
Therefore some users would be allowed to use certain applications and other users would not.

NOD32 starts up quickly but Outpost can be rather slow in initializing and allowing Internet access after login. Is this any better with ESS?


I am hoping to try ESS soon if I can borrow a spare PC from work or a friend but I am very wary about installing an early beta on my home computer.

Thanks in advance,

Tony

 

In my opinion Outpost is still abit further than ESS. But ESS is only in it's first beta. Although I can imagine that ESS won't come near Outpost. Outpost is purely a firewall provider and ESET will always be the anti virus provider.

The same thing as their suite won't come close to the ESS suite considering malware protection

 

Well, for one thing ESS does not give me like BSOD's like Outpost does any time it feels like it.

The feel of ESS is much like Comodo Firewall, of course without some of the advanced features as it's still in development. Application rule flexibility is not yet close to that of Outpost, it mainly just the basic 24/7 block and open for entire applications or single ports.

But I would expect if Eset added flexiblity to the rules it would be the icing on the cake, first they have to make and bake the thing, though.