Outpost Firewall Pro Review

Outpost firewall Pro, is more acurately a suite of programs, including pop-up blocking, anti spyware functions, ad blocking, active content blocking (javascript/vbscript etc) and of course its firewall function.

In terms of installation, Agnitum has improved their installation routines over time, and now it is possible to choose an automatic configuration where Outpost will scan your computer for programs, and assign rules if it recognises them. This is indeed useful for people learning. Once the rules are made, it is possible to tweak them endlessly. Alternatively, you can spend the time to configure each program individually, which may appear tedious, but is strangely rewarding.

Outpost has various modes of operation, including Block Most (which blocks everything, except that which you allow), Rules Wizard (which prompts you to define rules for programs that are requesting internet access for the first time), and Disable Mode, which completely disables the firewalls. A new addition in the latest version of Outpost, is Entertainment mode, which detects when the user is playing a game or watching a full screen movie, and suppresses prompts during that time. A very useful feature which doesn't impact security at all.

The program is highly configurable, and allows for advanced tweaking such as defining which programs are allowed rawsockets access (very few programs if anyone would ever need this), allowing/disallowing ping responses etc. For the novice user, this is way more configurabilty than is needed. If you want to roll up your sleeves however, you can control and secure your computer in ways you never thought were possible.

One caveat with Outpost, indeed with most firewalls, is its effect on system stability. Firewalls needs to have a very low access to your operating systems functions, and stability can suffer as a result. Over the course of using this product for 3 years, some versions would give me Blue Screens of Death.Therefore I would highly recommend that people install the trial version of the version first, to make sure there are no conflicts.

The support behind the product varys to a certain degree. The official support from Agnitum is negligible, however forum support is pretty comprehensive at http://www.outpostfirewall.com/. There you can learn the ins and outs of the program.