Time to ditch Sygate firewall?

Symantec to buy Sygate

By Ellen Messmer, Network World

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Symantec is set to acquire Sygate Technologies, which makes network access-control and endpoint-protection policy-enforcement products.

Symantec said it initially will keep offering Sygate's line of policy-enforcement products - which can be used in conjunction with network equipment from Alcatel, Enterasys, Juniper and Nortel, among others - to control network access based on policy decisions which may include anti-virus or patch updates. In January, Sygate joined Cisco's network admission control programme to support the Cisco-led method of desktop policy enforcement.

Symantec intends to integrate Sygate Enterprise Protection 5.0, the most recent version of Sygate's flapship software, into Symantec's current endpoint-protection products, which include Symantec Client Security, after the acquisition of Sygate has been completed.

"This will be the primary product area in which we intend to include SEP 5.0," said Brian Foster, Symantec's senior director of product, noting that after combining SEP 5.0 and Symantec Client Security, SEP

5.0 will eventually be phased out.

Foster said SEP 5.0 brings a mix of additional host intrusion-prevention and host control capabilities to the Symantec Client Security desktop software, which includes personal firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware support.

California.-based Sygate, a privately held company, was originally founded under the name Sybergen Technologies by Chief Technology Officer Chris Guo with help from venture capital firms that included Trident Capital, Trinity Ventures and MVC Capital. The company name was changed to Sygate five years ago, at the time John DeSantis joined as CEO and president.

Sygate's customer base of 400 enterprises includes Prudential Financial and Diebold. No specific consolidation plans concerning staff have been announced and the value of the deal was undisclosed.

Reply to
salwithed
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So what happens to Sygate personal firewall? free and pro editions?

I actually like using this thing, it's going to be difficult switching to something inferior. imo, everything is inferior to SPFP

Reply to
Joe Fox

I whole-heartedly agree. I think Norton, and the rest of their line, is a waste of time and money. I just want a firewall where checking "Remember My Decision" actually works. And SPF Pro is so configurable too. I actually know what I am doing, so why do I need a colorful interface with big ugly buttons and a section for games? Plain, simple. I just wish it had extended ACL configuration. Regulating destination traffic doesn't always cut it, security-wise.

I guess I'm just used to Cisco command line function.

Reply to
rmbkr8

Sad news... If Symantec does anything to it it'll probably be terrible. If I were a Sygate user, I think I'd just keep using 5.6 free or 5.5 Pro until there was some reason to change..

Reply to
Kerodo

I agree with both of you. I predict that Sygate v5.5 will become just as "everlasting" and popular as Kerio v2.1.5. (never tried SPF 5.6) Casey

Reply to
Casey Klc

I always used 5.5 Pro myself, so I don't know what was changed in the

5.6 Free update.

You're right Casey, 5.5 will probably live on for some time as a classic.

Reply to
Kerodo

You can get Sygate firewall in System suite by Vcom. thats the only place I have seen it.

Bob

Reply to
Bob

In Message-ID: posted on Thu, 18 Aug 2005 17:48:32 GMT, Casey Klc wrote: Begin

Trouble with Sygate is the msi installer that requires you to have IE installed, kind of illogical to require the most gracious malware host to date on board before you can install something to secure it. Why not just get legacy ZA v4.5 and not be bothered by IE dependent installers?

Reply to
Bart Bailey

Bart, that is something of a catch-22. I run Win98 and Bill Whats-his name's IE is so integrated in that I can't sensibly remove it :( I have never used IE or any other MS application. I run Opera/ Thunderbird/Gravity and SYGATE Pro 5.5. Sygate has served me well for about 4-yrs without any problems. You might want to get a copy of Sygate before it gets "improved with the bloats". Casey

Reply to
Casey Klc

In Message-ID: posted on Fri, 19 Aug 2005 21:35:12 GMT, Casey Klc wrote: Begin

I too run Win98SE here (with IE removed, even its HTML engine) also on board: Opera v6.06 build 1145 Forté Agent v1.93/32.576 Mailwasher Pro v4.1.9 Last viral incident (my own greedy fault) - Babylonia in 1999

Reply to
Bart Bailey

But if there are no signature updates available in the future, what does that mean for the security of continuing to use Sygate?

AT the moment I use Sygate Pro. There is an offer on their site to renew subscriptions for a year. Would it be worth it or would I find myself with a Symantec-bloated firewall called "Sygate"?

Louise

Reply to
louise

Sygate "Personal Firewall" installs SYSTEM-Services, which open windows.

This is a gross error, because this breaches security. Sygate show here, that they never read Microsoft's design guidlines for system services:

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For a software, which should enhance security, this design flow means the declaration of bankruptcy.

Yours, VB.

Reply to
Volker Birk

Well I own PowerQuest's Drive Image 7.x. It worked great. Then PowerQuest got bought out by Symantec. They won't let me buy an upgrade to Ghost 9.0, which is built on top of Drive Image technology. I have to buy Ghost 9.0 as if I were a totally new customer. As a result, I'm thinking of switching to Acronis True Image 8.0. My guess is that Symantec won't honor ownership of Sygate from its previous manufacturer. Yet another reason to hate Symantec. I quit using Norton AV when it got super bloated and they institued their copy protection that made my machine's CPU run at 100%. Of course they said I was the only one with that problem. Soon after, news of this problem was all over the 'net. So I was definitely not the only one. I really wish Symantec would stop eating the competition ... that is, destroying perfectly good software products.

My advice is do not buy the updates, and start evaluating other firewalls so when you have to switch, you have a viable alternative to Symantec.

Regards,

Margaret

Reply to
Margaret Wilson

I have PowerQuest's PartitionMagic 7.0 on my Win98se machine and that will stay but I have just purged anything Norton/Symantec, including every reference in the Registry. Never again!!!!!!!!

Don

Reply to
Don/Gen

Interesting aside. I also have Drive Image 7.x running under XP/SP1. It seems to work fine for me with the 7.0.3 fix/update from Symantec. Have you found a reason to stop using it?

thx, Bradley ___________________________________ SemiPelagian SHIFT-2 gmail STOP com do the obvious to reply

Reply to
Bradley B.

Interesting choice in AV software. I chose NOD32 as well! I've been very pleased with it. Much better than NAV in my opinion. I did the firewall eval thing quite a while ago, and my choice is Black ICE. I know some people say it's not a "real" firewall because it doesn't scan outgoing traffic. Well, if those people actually read the manual, they'd know there's a switch you can use in firewall.ini to have it scan outgoing traffic. Personally, I prefer to start with a known-clean system and then simply scan incoming traffic. My network sits behind a NAT firewall, however, so that provides some additional protection (again, not against outgoing traffic). Anyway, before I found BlackICE, my fav was Tiny Firewall, which I believe became Kerio, which I understand is now no longer being updated IIRC.....

Regards,

Margaret

Reply to
Margaret Wilson

I have come to a similar conclusion.

What alternate firewalls are you considering?

BTW, I too left NAV because of resource bloat. I now have NOD32 and am extremely pleased. Relatively no drain on system resources and daily automatic updating. Email tech support is coherent and speedy.

Louise

Reply to
louise

If you can edit a text file to turn it on, malware can edit the text file to turn it off. (Never used BlackIce for this reason.)

Kerio is alive and well. And a very good firewall. Free for home use. Yes, it monitors both inbound and outbound traffic.

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Reply to
Beauregard T. Shagnasty

Computer Associates recently acquired Tiny software, so it's an unknown what will happen with Tiny firewall other than it will eventually be assimilated into CA's eTrust line of products.

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Reply to
DaVinci

Not if you run in user mode as opposed to admin. But you're right, I only use Black ICE as backup behind my NAT firewall. I would probably want more protection if I didn't have the hardware.

This is good to know. Thanks.

Regards,

Margaret

Reply to
Margaret Wilson

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