Sygate is Junkware
I was looking at some security websites, and once again I find that Sygate has been given a positive review. This is bunk.Now, maybe it's undergone rigorous testing by security professionals...or maybe, just maybe, someone has stock in Sygate.
Let's look at a basic, rather sad fact. About the only way I can test firewalls is by going to grc.com (Shields Up!) and "testing my shields," or to other websites that do the same thing. Awhile ago, when I was looking for a good, free firewall to protect me from the evils of the 'Net that are everpresent on broadband, one of those I tried is Sygate's firewall. I tested my new install at Sygate's site that they have set up. It said everything was a-okay, and that I was hidden from the 'Net. I went to grc.com and tried the same thing, and it told me I had ports open. Not only that, but it drastically reduced my browsing speed. If I dropped it, I was a lot faster. I dumped that load of crap in a hurry.
Later, I was trying out ZoneAlarm, good ol' ZoneAlarm, and I cruised over to Sygate's firewall tester to see what kind of reading I might get. Well, Sygate said I was vulnerable. Grc.com tested ZA and told me I was stealthed. Hmmm...
How to account for this? Well, first of all, Steve Gibson (owner of grc) doesn't make firewalls. Sygate does. It would be painfully easy to make a firewall transmit a unique signature back to the home server of the company. Once this signal was received, then the user is directed to a webpage that displays a false positive. Any other firewall (which doesn't transmit anything) gets directed to a false negative. Pretty crappy, eh? I won't use a firewall that resorts to such deception, and neither should anyone else.
Of course, ZoneAlarm is not without its bugs, either. The Pro version locked me out of the internet, uninstalling the free version made it so my machine wouldn't boot until I manually removed a "vsdata.vxd" entry from the registry. ZoneAlarm has also allegedly been hacked numerous times.
I'll be trying other free firewalls in an attempt to find one that works. I'll keep everyone posted.
posted by ERW @ 1:04 PM
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