Outpost Firewall Pro 8 Review

As a standalone firewall, Outpost Firewall Pro 8 is a blast from the past. Its program control, inactive by default, inundates the user with popups if enabled. Proactive protection features block both good and bad programs. There's really no reason to buy this when you can get better firewall protection for free.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Main Window

Outpost Firewall Pro 8 looks very similar to Outpost's standalone antivirus. The main window displays overall program status and offers quick access to common tasks.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Settings

Many of the firewall's settings overlap settings for similar features in Outpost's antivirus, but there are some significant differences. It replaced antivirus settings with the firewall's network protection settings and also adds ad-blocking.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Firewall Display

Outpost's Firewall tab simply lists all processes that are making use of the network or Internet connection. The report of byte transferred in and out updates in real time.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Port Scan Blocked

When I tested Outpost using port scans and other Web-based attacks, it successfully stealthed all ports. In several cases it specifically detected a port scan and totally blocked the attacking site for five minutes.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Program Control

In its default Auto-Learn mode, Outpost allows a program any Internet or network access it requests and makes a rule to always allow that access. With Auto-Learn turned off, it asks you, the user, what to do about unknown programs. Besides just allowing or blocking the access you can choose a preset application type.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Leak Test Allowed

Leak test programs challenge program control by manipulating or masquerading as trusted programs. In Auto-Learn mode, those tricks aren't required, as Outpost creates rules to allow any access the leak test program needs.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Leak Test Blocked

With Auto-Learn turned off, Outpost detected connection attempts by a number of leak test programs.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Anti-Leak Warning

Outpost's Anti-Leak technology, shared by the Outpost antivirus, alerts users to suspicious events. Here it has caught a leak test trying to subvert Windows Explorer.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Valid Programs Blocked

Anti-Leak and related technologies in Outpost pop up warnings about good and bad programs alike. Here it has detected a PCMag utility attempting to install a driver.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: File and Folder Lock

If you lock a folder using the File & Folder Lock feature, nobody will be able to access it, not even you. Outpost advises protecting settings with a password to ensure that nobody else can remove the lock.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Folder Lock Alert

Alerts for folder lock events are disabled by default. If you enable them, you'll get a popup like this one any time there's an attempt to access a locked item.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Ads and Sites

Outpost can block advertisements in a variety of ways, and can also block websites based on keywords or on specific URLs.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Ad Keyword List

One way Outpost blocks ads is by finding keywords from its list in the URL. It can also block images matching a number of standard ad sizes.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Quick Tune

The Quick Tune add-in for Internet Explorer lets you manage Outpost's control over advertisements and active website content.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Ad Replacement

The ad-blocker replaces detected advertisements with "[AD]", as you can see at the far left of this image.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Tools Pane

Outpost Firewall Pro includes a number of specialized tools aimed at expert users. Most users should only launch these under instruction from tech support.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: Process Activity

One of the advanced tools is a process monitor that lets you view exactly which processes are active and get a detailed list of all the program modules for any given process.

Outpost Firewall Pro 8: File and Registry Activity

If you set Outpost to monitor file and Registry activity, you'll get pages and pages of information. Fortunately there's a filter option to help you find specific information.