This is an incredible deal. One can get Astaro Security Gateway which includes packet level free antivirus with dual scanning engines, spam blocker, parental controls, ICSA labs certified firewall, and remote access for up to 50 computers. Let me repeat $0 for 50 computers licenses. Competing internet gateway software can easily exceed $1000’s of dollars with the same features. Now a home network does not have to be concerned about individual computers security software.
Astaro Security Gateway can run on any system with 2 network cards. The software doesn’t run on Windows but rather on a custom Linux operating system. One downloads the file as an .iso file and burns it to a disk. In order to install Astaro Security Gateway simply reboot the computer and boot from the disk. A helpful menu will pop up and guide a user through the install. Please take note that Astaro Security Gateway will delete the currently installed operating system.
Here are just a few of the features:
- Full Web Interface – Control from any computer in the network or remotely. Has user accounts.
- Intrusion Prevention – Protection for Windows, Linux, Web Servers, Mail Servers and even Database Servers. For example webservers includes attacks against PHP, CGI, frontpage, and Many more.
- Load Balancing and NAT.
- Blockable Services – Block Bittorrent, Areas, Gnutella, AIM, AOL and many more. There is even country specific blocking.
- Scans all downloads – A convenient screen with the scan status and items dedicated appears in the browser after any download
- Spam Protection – If spam is detected Astaro Security Gateway alerts the user through their emails. One can also read any email caught as Spam through the web interface.
- Http and Https web proxy.
- Advanced information about server network, memory and CPU usage – The statistics also include top clients, domains, servers, including top recipients and senders.
- SNMP management.
- Control by an iPhone.
- Advanced Firewall.
In the end it’s impossible to get this many features for free in out of any free Internet Gateway.
