Labs

FIREWALL RATING HHHH

BullGuard's latest internet security suite includes a firewall, anti-virus software and an online backup service. A relative newcomer to the market, the company aims to provide novices with everything they need to protect their PCs. It hopes to do this by combining established products within an easy-to-use interface.

The anti-virus component is made by a company called BitDefender, a respected vendor that we've not had in our labs before. The firewall comes courtesy of Sygate, so we expected good things from it. Finally, the online backup is run by BullGuard itself.

By default the firewall

ADVERTISEMENT

blocks attackers for 600 seconds, which can certainly slow down anyone who wants to probe your system for information. We always turn this feature off because in theory an attacker could spoof their IP address to match that of an important system, such as one of your ISP's systems, and your firewall could stop them talking to you.

The firewall detected our scans but, despite being based on Sygate technology, it failed to see the web attacks that we sent to the IIS server. We'd rather use the more intimidating original Sygate firewall and have a decent intrusion detection system than have this simple but less effective version.

The online backup system provides 500MB of space. At first we didn't think it was working, as it seemed to spend forever trying to upload without reporting any progress. However, the progress bar shot from zero to 100 per cent in a split second, apparently making a huge transfer instantly. We wouldn't trust the progress bar.

Our main gripe with BullGuard 5 is its price, though. It's not as stocked with features as the other security suites reviewed here, and it's the second most expensive to run beyond the first year, after the remarkably pricy Panda program.