Security Basics mailing list archives

Potetial Outpost Conflicts?


From: Colin Rous <crous () sympatico ca>
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 09:23:49 -0500

G'day, all,

I currently run two firewalls (Sygate and Tiny). I wanted to replace one with Outpost to see if Outpost is as good as people tell me it is. Agnitum warns you not to run more than one firewall, so I disconnected from the 'net, shut down both my firewalls and started the Outpost install. The install process noticed the existence of the other non-running firewalls on the sytem and gave me the following message:

"You will most likely have the following problems if you decide to run more then one firewall on your computer:

- Blue screen fatal errors, system freezing or sudden system reboots.
- All access will be allowed for every application. Nothing will be blocked.
- Every application will be blocked and you will be unable to connect to any web site.
- Your computer system will be unable to boot up.
- Every other error imaginable!"

First, these claimed potential problems strike me as being somewhat over-the-top. Second, I run two AV programs (security in depth, and all that), one of which warns of dire consequences from running more than one AV program. In fact, I have no problems whatsoever; they don't even trip over each other's signature files. Neither do I get any conflicts between my current two firewalls or problems from running two. (I pass all GRC, Sygate and other tests with either or both.)

So my question is: Has anyone experimented with running Outpost with another firewall? If so, what was your experience? If not, can anyone think of anything to justify Agnitum's claims? Is this just a problem of Outpost's? (No other firewall I know of issues such a warning.) Or is this just a marketing claim to encourage usage of Outpost and only Outpost? (My OS, BTW, is 98.)

Cheers,
Colin

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