Hi BAV,
Hmmm.......Long Time No See & No Talk, How Art Thou.
You Have Vast Knowledge BAV, In This Regard......Anyways Better Speed Is Not Something That Improves The Speed Many Folds But Just Marginally If One Was Connected Through VPN & Not Using Anti-Virus. I Have Been Using This With My Laptop Never Really Paid Attention To The Speed or Did Any Comparative Speed Testing, Probably 'Cause I Got This Stuff Just For Safer Connection Where I Could Be In Control Of The Ports.
I Think You Will Understand More From Their Website Than I Did.
Warm Regards
SavantGarde
Hi Savant,
I am doing fine. This product has been there since 2002 and I have received various reports by talking to users about this. Some have actually experienced drop in speed. Many say it works fine. But what I gathered from people who are very well respected in the security industry is that this is just a router with SPI and NAT (for selective packet filtering and port forwarding), *BUT* where users cannot change the firmwire settings at will, *and* another level of firmwire backup so that it is set back to factory settings if changed by malicious software (ya it has software, unlike what was thought previously). Product is okay , but costly.
I would suggest a *wired* router from linksys (available at all major cities in India or ordered online) with SPI and NAT (latter included by default) will do the job fine. Alphashield is great tool for users who are not comfortable in tweaking with the firmwire/settings etc. Otherwise it is as bad or good as any hardware FW.
And yes, whether you have AS or Router, its better to keep a lightweight FW like OnlineArmour *free* with HIPS enabled, cos you never know when the router can be breached!
This is a section that needs lots of contribution. Looking forward to more from you!
Best Regards,
BAV