So Symantec Bought out Sygate

[Bozono]

Apparently after Nov. 30 Sygate will be no more. There goes my favorite free firewall. So sad. An article here from Symantec explaining the actual aquisition, Apologies to any Repost nazis.

 

[BW86]

ughhh.... Symantec....uugghhh

 

[Xyclone]

Monopoly!

 

[Schadenfroh]

and kerio is going to cease development of their freeware firewall:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=33&threadid=1714576&enterthread=y

 

[Finns14]

Zone Alarm FTW


Edit and yes they have a free version

 

[Unkno]

yup, zone alarm.......just watch, microsoft and/or google is soon to be the new owners of the companies, lol.

 

[VicodiN]

Simply awful..

 

[Abhoth]

Me gets latest free Sygate firewall and saves it big time........

 

[Abhoth]

Just love the quote below ... from an article over at ZDNet. All it really says is ... we took a look at this free stuff and our crap you have to pay for and decided to dump the free junk... yes we bought them so you'd have to pay!!!!! muuuuhaaaaaahhhhaaaaaaaa But I will guarantee we'll all find a free solution, ZA sucks by the by... have a nice day

"While the Sygate products complement our enterprise offerings, there was an overlap on the consumer side of the business. After looking at the Sygate Personal Firewall technology we decided to discontinue the products and continue selling Norton Personal Firewall," Weiler said.

 

[spherrod]

oh dear...

 

[boran]

meh, this stuff should be forbidden. buying your competition out of the market is not a good thing.

edit: and I really liked sygate firewall and I wouldnt even think about installing something from symantec.

 

[corkyg]

Symantec has been doing this stuff for almost 20 years. There was once a terrific utility called PCTools (in the DOS world) - it ran rings around Norton Utilities. So, Symantec bought it and that was that. They have done it with good program after good program - and what they end up with is never as good. Symantec is a software cannibal company. They've left bones all over the place.

 

[Zugzwang152]

Originally posted by: boran
meh, this stuff should be forbidden. buying your competition out of the market is not a good thing.

edit: and I really liked sygate firewall and I wouldnt even think about installing something from symantec.

Well, there still is competition. It's not of, say, Microsoft proportion. Symantec has quite a few major competitors, McAfee, Trend Micro, and Computer Associates in the antivirus/security software market, just to name a few.

 

[IronMentality]

I personally am a fan of Trend Micro's PC-cillin Security suite. It might not be free, but I recommend purchasing it. (although I have seen Free After Rebate deals lately)

 

[Trente]

Does this mean i'll have to use a different firewall due to lack of product support?

Firewall is a primitive program basically, so there's no need for future updates - I have been using Sygate for over a year now and the version I'm running is still the one you'd download today (5.5.2710).

What gives?

 

[John P]

PC Tools was awesome, I also use Sygate Personal Firewall and have had nasty problems with Symantec products. If you can't beat em, buy em!! Nice job Symantec.

 

[deepred98]

that sucks well at least i have a copy on my other computer

anyone got a list of firewalls still free and untainted

 

[wongnog]

I am constantly having problems with sygate personal firewall crashing on me periodically. any other good firewalls (free or not) that you guys recommend?

 

[Nikamichi]

Originally posted by: deepred98
that sucks well at least i have a copy on my other computer

anyone got a list of firewalls still free and untainted

Over the past few years, the list has pretty much gone unchanged, though there are a few that some may not have heard of.

ZoneAlarm
Sygate Personal Firewall
Outpost
Kerio
Jetico Personal Firewall
Primedius Firewall Lite
Securepoint Personal Firewall
WyvernWorks Firewall 2004

Those are pretty much the most popular freeware FWs available. You can also refer to this thread:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=33&threadid=1658987&enterthread=y