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Summary of June tests (2009/06/29 12:06)
Two updates have been in Proactive Security Challenge in June, during which we retested eight products, namely:
- Avira Premium Security Suite 9.0.0.367
- Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 9.0.0.459
- Lavasoft Personal Firewall 3.0.2293.8822
- Malware Defender 2.2.2
- Online Armor Personal Firewall 3.5.0.14 Free
- Outpost Security Suite Pro 2009 6.5.4.2525.381.0687
- Panda Internet Security 2010 15.00.00
- Rising Internet Security 2009 21.41.21
Excellent results have been achieved by Kaspersky Internet Security, Online Armor Personal Firewall and Outpost Security Suite Pro. Close to excellent results was Malware Defender. All others failed completely except for Lavasoft Personal Firewall that finished in the middle of the scoring table. Visit Proactive Security Challenge results for more information.
Migration to IE8 (2009/05/20 14:27)
Starting next time, Proactive Security Challenge testing will be performed with Internet Explorer 8 set as the default browser. This update required Breakout1 test to be updated, all other tests should work without a change. Kill6 has been improved to be able to use alternative methods to obtain a process handle.
Online Armor first, free Outpost also great (2009/05/02 10:34)
Recently, Agnitum Ltd. released a new free version of Outpost Firewall and also Tall Emu Pty Ltd released a new version of their Online Armor Personal Firewall. A great opportunity for Proactive Security Challenge testing.
We have also included the latest version of Privatefirewall and three products that have not been tested in our challenge before. These were CA Internet Security Suite Plus, eConceal Pro for Windows and ThreatFire Free. How did they score? See the results of Proactive Security Challenge.
Firewall Challenge renamed to Proactive Security Challenge (2009/04/23 16:27)
Firewall Challenge has been renamed to Proactive Security Challenge. There were several reasons why we decided to rename this project. We wanted to stress out the fact that this project always focused on security products that implement application-based security model and behavior blocking features – i.e. most of Internet security suites, HIPS, personal firewalls and behavior blockers on the market. We want to mitigate misunderstanding and criticism of our project by eliminating the word firewall from its name and web pages. You can read what kind of products do we test in Proactive Security Challenge in the project's FAQ. We have also modified the content of the projects web pages so that the focus and goals of the project should be clear.
The challenge will continue very soon.
DIFINEX acquired Matousec (2009/04/14 20:14)
Different Internet Experience Ltd. (DIFINEX) has acquired Matousec – Transparent security, a privately-held Internet security related company. All projects and staff of Matousec will continue under DIFINEX with minor changes. DIFINEX will preserve all business connections of Matousec, with all their duties and discretions. Terms of the acquisition were not announced.
DIFINEX is a new company with an interest in Internet projects and online services. DIFINEX focuses on creating, financing and covering projects with medium-sized and large Internet audience.
The acquisition by DIFINEX will allow us to better focus on the core of our projects while the great portion of administration will be handled by DIFINEX.
New results put Comodo back to the top (2009/04/07 14:42)
Firewall Challange comes with the new results. We have tested the latest versions of Comodo Internet Security, BitDefender Internet Security, ZoneAlarm Free Firewall and ESET Smart Security. Comodo proved its quality and took the first place again. The other three reached the bottom of the score table.
The archive (2009/02/07 14:40)
Upon requests of many of our visitors, we have implemented Firewall Challenge archive. The past results are now accessible to you thanks to the newly opened archive. The archive allows you to compare up to ten product lines tested in Firewall Challenge. The detailed table of the past results is supported with a graphic chart.
In the past few days we have experienced internal server problems which affected various features of our website including product recommendation links. These problems have been fixed, all features should work now. We apologize for any inconvenience.
FWC update (2009/01/07 12:58)
We have published new results for these products and versions:
- Jetico Personal Firewall 2.0.2.8.2327
- Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 8.0.0.506
- Online Armor Personal Firewall 3.0.0.190 Free
- PC Tools Firewall Plus 5.0.0.36
- ZoneAlarm Pro 8.0.059.000
Top products against new tests (2008/11/28 19:45)
Firewall Challenge has a new leader. The new tests and improvements changed the scores of the top products that were tested today quite a lot. The only product that remained with the Excellent ranking and the new leader of the challenge is Online Armor Personal Firewall 3.0.0.190. For more information and the latest results, please visit Firewall Challenge pages.
Major changes in Firewall Challenge (2008/11/07 16:52)
Firewall Challenge moves forward. Several noticeable changes and improvements have been implemented:
1) We are leaving Windows XP Service Pack 2 platform. All new tests will be performed on Windows XP Service Pack 3. If a product is not compatible with Windows XP Service Pack 3, we may make an exception if our visitors are interested in this product.
2) We are raising the bar of Firewall Challenge. We have implemented several new tests to SSTS, which we also use in Firewall Challenge.
3) We have also improved some methods used by various tests, mostly termination tests, hence their power has increased.
4) Another thing that makes the challenge tougher for the tested products is a change of the scoring of tests SSS, SSS2 and SSS3. Newly, we penalize inabilities to block an unwanted user logout and a system shutdown.
5) We are leaving two tests PerfTCP and PerfUDP, which caused more problems than benefits. Mixing the performance and security tests turned out not to be a good idea. These tests will remain in the system only because of the products that were tested with them. New challenges will be performed without these two tests.
6) We are changing the testing method based on Driver Verifier. We will not perform subtests for each of the options that Driver Verifier supports anymore. A single combined Driver Verifier test will be performed. This change would make it hard for the products to pass the level 9, hence we have added one more test to the level 9 and changed the score limit for this level from 75% to 50%.