Black Ice Defender End of Life! Finally! – cappy – CA
I bought this way back in 2001 after my credit card number was stolen off the net. It worked ok for someone inexperienced with security, but now that I know what to protect against, I found out you can get better firewalls for free. I use Tall Emu’s Online Armor. Zone Alarm is another good free one.
And now I read that IBM (who now owns Black Ice) is ending support and updates to Black Ice in Sept 2008. You’ve been warned! Get another firewall!
I’ve been using different versions of BlackIce for about 3 years now, and I’m thoroughly satisfied with it, albeit with a couple of mitigatable concerns.
The first concern is the system’s defaulted application protection. This should be turned off at all times, as the program will continually spam you with requests to block applications, which include such basic system processes as explorer.exe, rundll.dll, and Windows Media Player. The memory function, which is supposed to help the program learn which programs to block and which to allow, does not work, and never has. Turning this feature off is an absolute must. The other annoying feature, is the yearly subscription this thing requires for its license. I bought the **** thing, let me use it. Fortunately, this is an easy fix.
Black Ice does require a good bit of setup, as you’ll have to spend time blocking off ports commonly targetted by hackers, as well as blocking ports and addresses as they are scanned or scan your computer, this does take some time, and I recommend having a second firewall setup while you ‘teach’ Black Ice.
Without application protection, however, the program runs quickly and smoothly in the task tray, giving you messages on the tray icon for different levels of attack activity. You can also set Black Ice to play a .wav file to alert you. It detects many different types of attacks, such as Subseven port probes, PC Anywhere port probes, syn-ack shenanigans and others, even giving you a rundown of what each attack involves via the web.
All in all, I recommend this program, but only for the computer user who is serious about taking the time to protect their data. This program is not for the faint of heart. Pearson Software: 1575954451 In the good old days of computing–i.e., the early ’90s–the only fears the average user had from hacker attacks were viruses passed from PC to PC via floppy disks like a traditional cold. Now, with everyone hacking and coughing in the same giant room of the World Wide Web, your system’s become vulnerable to Trojan Horse attacks, back-door affronts, and the same plain old viruses that are now much easier to catch.
So it’s a good idea–especially if you have an always-on connection, such as cable access or DSL–to provide yourself with some protection. That’s where Network ICE’s BlackICE Defender comes in. This personal firewall, now in version 2.1, is relatively inexpensive, easy to configure, and unobtrusive to your daily use. And, if you really want to find out who’s after you, BlackICE contains the tools to allow you to attempt to trace your intruders back to the source.
Setup takes only a few minutes and then it’s up and running at a default level of protection, Cautious (it goes up to Nervous and then Paranoid, but the higher settings could interfere with your normal Web or home network activities). You can leave it alone, and it will record any attempts to probe or connect to your system as well as alert you when the attempts occur. A visit to the Shield’s UP! page at Gibson Research Corporation (www.grc.com), which simulates various hacker attacks, showed that Cautious was more than enough to ward off even strong attempts to infiltrate.
Earlier versions of BlackICE met with complaints about the difficult-to-understand interface. While 2.1 still contains some technical terms, it also uses the advICE feature to open a Web site that explains each type of hack attempt, from innocent attempts to connect to a standard HTTP server to more coercive SubSeven Trojan Horse attacks.
Unlike a lot of other firewalls, BlackICE keeps track of any information it can glean from intruders and stores it, allowing you to report serious offenders to your ISP. You can also block or trust specific intruders, so you won’t be bothered by other networked PCs that you know should have access to your system.
While BlackICE isn’t as easy to use as some other firewalls, it’s much easier than it used to be and it offers much more powerful tools for those users who want to fight back against hackers. –J. Curtis Dialup access, DSL, or cable modems–even personal gateways and network appliances–give hackers the ability to penetrate the security of your computer. Using revolutionary antihacker technology, BlackICE Defender combines firewall and intrusion detection technologies to deliver protection for home users, stopping hackers from accessing your PC any time you’re on the Internet. With easy-to-configure levels of protection, you can install and configure this technology in a matter of seconds and customize to the level of protection you need. Customize your firewall security settings in seconds in four easy-to-understand levels: Paranoid, Nervous, Cautious, and Trusting. BlackICE’s intrusion detection system inspects all inbound and outbound traffic, automatically filtering out any malicious packets. Black Ice Defender
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