Developer(s) Agnitum License Proprietary EULA | Type Firewall | |
Stable release 9.3 (4934.708.2079) / December 1, 2015; 15 months ago (2015-12-01) Operating system Platform XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, Windows 10, Windows Server 2003, 2008 | ||
Outpost Firewall Pro was a software-based personal firewall package developed by Agnitum (founded in 1999 in St. Petersburg, Russia). This product is no longer available. Both the freeware and paid versions were terminated December 2015. Agnitum was acquired by Yandex for the exclusive use as an internal part of Yandex Browser. Updates and support have been terminated effective December 2016. Outpost Security Suite was also terminated at the same time. A visit to the Agnitum website or the Outpost Community Support website unofficial Outpost users forum states "Agnitum terminates direct and partner sales of the Outpost product line".
Contents
General description
Outpost Firewall Pro (personal firewall) was designed to monitor incoming and outgoing network traffic on Windows machines. Like most advanced PC firewalls, Outpost went beyond monitoring internet traffic and also monitored application behavior in an attempt to stop malicious software covertly infecting Windows systems. Agnitum called this technology "Component Control" and "Anti-Leak Control" (included into HIPS-based "Host Protection" module). The product also had included a spyware scanner and monitor, together with pop-up blocker/spyware filter for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox (Outpost's web surfing security tools had included black-lists for IPs and URLs, unwanted web page element filters and ad-blocking. The technology altogether is known as "Web control").
Version 7.5 and newer add new techniques to help PC users block unknown/new threats before their activation:
Version 8 introduces further improvements as well as full Windows 8 compatibility and a redesigned user interface;v.8 also has extended x64 HIPS support.
Product's use cases
Outpost Firewall Pro allowed the user to specifically define how a PC application connects to the Internet. This is known as the "Rules Wizard" mode, or policy, and is the default behavior for the program. When in this mode, Outpost Firewall Pro displayed a prompt each time a new process attempted network access or when a process requested a connection that was not covered by its pre-validated rules. The idea was that this then lets the user decide whether an application should be allowed a network connection to a specific address, port or protocol.
In practice, prompting users can make the product seem over complicated to less experienced users. Agnitum engineers included pre-set rules for many popular applications. Users could optionally submit rules they had created. First versions for Outpost Firewall Pro (1.0–4.0) were also designed to allow users to create their own plugins and add other third-party plugins to meet specific needs and/or functionality. Current versions do not have the plugin programming interface as the current Microsoft OS security kernels do not allow the techniques that were used previously. the more popular plugin to block all access for certain IP addresses from a user maintained list has been hard programmed into the firewall and suite versions.
Online assistance
Outpost Firewall Pro users developed an unofficial web forum fed by Agnitum since 2002 to discuss product features and support. The forum is moderated by experienced senior users of Outpost Firewall Pro and offers help and support for technical advice and program assistance.
Achievements
Outpost Firewall Pro's self-protection technology aims at detecting attempts to modify/disable its services or hinder program protection and received accolades by Comparison Testers as being capable and sophisticated at detecting all known methods of disabling it without user permission. The testing site Matousec.com (performing a test-set of leak-tests to all known software including PC firewalls), consistently gives Outpost Firewall Pro its highest ratings in PC firewalls independent comparisons. Outpost Firewall Pro has more than 30 awards in 15 countries in computer media and test labs since 2002.
The product was also licensed by several security software publishers in 2003–2010: Sophos (UK, USA), Lavasoft (Sweden), Canon (Japan), Bullguard (UK), CAT-QuickHeal (India), Novell (USA), AVG (Czech Republic), Avast (Czech Republic), Proland Software (India), and others.
Versions
Criticism
Outpost can generate a large number of security alerts, which some experts believe will lead to an inexperienced end-user habitually dismissing all alerts, even important ones. This firewall is preferred by experienced users as Agnitum's direction is to give the end user complete control to all aspects of their system to avoid unwanted changes by malicious software, disclosure of personal information and malware. In advanced security mode, Outpost's Component Control will notify the user every time a network enabled application has a changed component and Anti-Leak Control will notify the user whenever an application performs a potentially dangerous operation such as overwriting another application's memory space. In practice this can result in such a high number of alerts that they can quickly become intrusive. To mediate this, Outpost includes the option to apply validated pre-sets automatically, to allow for a secure configuration, and yet provide ease of use.