Agnitum Outpost Security Suite Pro v9.1

Ok, I promised I will be giving (technically, I am just linking) a 1 year free license to a paid AV. The good news is that, it is not only an AV, but a full Security Suite including the firewall and all. So, which one is it? Its Outpost Security Suite Pro v9.1.

So, how good do you think it is? Outpost had always been a really good firewall, and at a time, even the best FREE firewall around. It had also been winning awards from many popular polls such as VB100.

See the awards here:
http://www.agnitum.com/news/awards.php

Some of the features:

• Anti-Malware module with greater detection accuracy
• Two-way firewall for secure network connections
• Proactive Protection module to preemptively block unknown and zero-day threats
• SmartDecision technology to facilitate secure decision-making
• Web control with fast web content filtering to protect your PC from web-borne threats
• System and Applications Guard to keep installed software and OS protected
• Self-protection technology to maintain continuity of protection
• The 4^th generation of SmartScan optimization technology for fast subsequent malware scans
• USB virus protection to prevent malware which spreads via USB devices
• Program activity tracker to review file and registry activity in real time
• Entertainment mode (for games and video) and Auto-Learn 2.0 (for beginners)

Read more about Outpost Security Suite v9.1
http://www.agnitum.com/products/security-suite/

I hope that had gotten you excited. Now, you must be screaming how to get this free?
Thanks to Computerbild, visit this page in Russian:
http://www.agnitum.ru/promo/computerbild/

But not to worry, this is roughly what it translates to:

And this is the important part. You need to key in this Key (manually) :
8IJDI-G2KWK-4SG8S-8SWGS-GWG5X

I suggest you key in your email so that you would received support information from Agnitum.
Then in the next page you should get a key (with many alphanumeric letters). Make sure you copy and paste it into notepad and SAVE IT! It will not be send to your email again.

Just download one of the following installers here:
32 Bits Installer
64 Bits Installer
Do a installation and proceed to register your product. Paste in ONLY the bunch of alphanumeric letters, skip the name, email etc. I know its not straight forward, but just make sure no extra line break and such and you will get it right.

Enjoy your 1 year free of Outpost Security Suite Pro!
Please leave a thanks if you appreciate this. And do pick up a copy of Computerbild while you are in Moscow!

PC Tools Threatfire vs Windows Home Server 2011

I had merely touched on a Anti malware called Threafire (http://www.threatfire.com/) in my previous post, which claim to be very effective and could be combined with other AV products to increase effectiveness. I had tried the product for a while in the past. It is not very heavy in memory, but I think eventually, it is something like a IDS with cloud analysis. This is a really good and cheap addon if you only have the AV component.

For my WHS 2011, I had been tweaking to get the best AV/Firewall combination working. In the end, my last configuration was:

• Comodo Internet Security 2011 Pro (Firewall Off)
• Threatfire 

It turns out that I am unable to open the Dashboard from a remote workstation. I pinpointed the problem to Threatfire somehow blocking it and there is no configuration to unblock it. So, in the end (for now), Threatfire is kicked out of the WHS and everything is working fine now again.

So, after a extended period of hunting, the best combination I could get working is Comodo Internet Security 2011 Pro without the Firewall enabled. Let me know how you addresses your WHS 2011 AV/FW needs!

Almost giving up on BullGuard 10 because of Windows Home Server 2011

Its sad to say that this eventually happened. Its not that I did not anticipated it, but rather sad that after months of debugging and help from both Microsoft and Bullguard, I did not find a easy solution to resolve this.

Here is some background of what had happened. Recently, after the launch, I had decided to upgrade to Windows Home Server 2011 (Despite some features are gone such as Drive Extender). I had been using Bullguard Internet Suite all along prior to this when I was with WHS v1. However, I notice that once I had upgraded and reinstalled the WHS Clients on my desktops and laptops, only 1 of them actually works. The rest of them simply indicate that it cannot connect to the WHS 2001 Server and the server say the same thing about the client. As such, backup and some other functions such as monitoring etc are effectively crippled.

I had been bearing with this, while meantime, I kick started the support with Microsoft, which was my fault that I did not follow through because they had required for all my server's log. Due to privacy issue, I decided that I did not like that idea. At the same time, I contacted Bullguard which went in a spiral and eventually into the blackhole when they said they will get their engineer to take a look at it. Perhaps not many of their customer actually uses WHS 2011. OR plain fact is that people just accept it that these 2 don't mix and choose not to have them together.

Finally, after month of waiting, I decided that I will give up and dump Bullguard. I could try out some of the free solution out there, or buy one that actually works, but I probably won't pay easily now knowing that even commercial Anti Malware may actually not work, despite all they claim for the WHS Client.

So far, what have I tried? I found a free Personal Firewall known as PrivateFirewall (http://www.privacyware.com/personal_firewall.html) and it did actually work very well. Upon reboot, the WHS Client immediately got connected and monitoring, backup status are available. However, although the firewall make claims of blocking malware, it actually doesn't detects them as it does not come with a anti malware module. It only blocks any malware from connecting outside when it tries to.

So, I added a anti malware component to it. I choose Lavesoft's Ad-aware Free Internet Security 9.0 (http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php). Don't be confused that it say Internet Security that it will include a Firewall. It doesn't. At least the Free version does not. This however, fits nicely into my solution as it provides the missing anti malware component to PrivateFirewall. I installed this and tried out some checking and backup. No problem with WHS 2011 client software.

At randomly choosing 2 (pretty good) security software and it does not interfere with WHS, I suppose I can conclude that its not WHS at fault. I guess it is also unfortunate that Bullguard could not work as I pretty like it so far as it provided quite a complete suite of functions including vulnerability assessment (via software version). However, I guess they did not manage to test it with a wide enough range of applications and it eventually lead to this. Guess it only a matter of time I will give up, even though I still have a good half year subscriptions left.

Comodo Internet Security 1 Year Trial

Comodo is pretty generous in giving away a 1 YEAR trial for their Internet Security Suite 2011. Comodo is one of the better FREE firewall around, so why not take a look at whats the paid version like?

Grab it via:

64 + 32 bits
http://download.comodo.com/cis/download/installs/1000/standalone/cispro_1year_installer.exe

x86 ONLY
http://download.comodo.com/cis/download/installs/1000/standalone/cispro_1year_installer_x86.exe

x64 ONLY
http://download.comodo.com/cis/download/installs/1000/standalone/cispro_1year_installer_x64.exe

Just install and you have 365 days of fully functional trial.