Scot’s Newsletter Blog

This is just a quick heads-up that the first issue of Scot’s Newsletter mailed today after an unintended 5-month hiatus. The contents of the newsletter are no longer published on the Web, since the newsletter is primarily a blog notification message. There is some information in this issue of direct interest to subscribers — including an explanation of why it’s been so long since the newsletter mailed.

Because, these days, newsletters often accidentally wind up in spam traps, I wanted to make sure that newsletter subscribers got this little extra notification from me with a suggestion that they check to ensure they got their copies. (Please note: I cannot resend the newsletter to you if you didn’t get it. My apologies.)

If you’d like to subscribe to or unsubscribe from the Scot’s Newsletter Blog email-notification list, those tasks are quite easy. Please visit SNB subscription page.

– Scot

Yesterday, Tall Emu, makers of Scot’s Newsletter’s Best Software Firewall of 2008, Online Armor, released public beta 1 of a significant new version of its firewall. Online Armor version 3 supports Vista, but that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. The list of features is quite long and very intriguing.

Tall Emu CEO Mike Nash tells me that the public beta of the free version of Online Armor will be released shortly (probably today). In addition to Vista support, the free version will now be able to check for and install updates automatically as well as upgrade to newer versions (free or paid) of the OA software without having to uninstall the previous version. That takes care of my chief criticism of Online Armor’s 2.x free version. (The paid version of the product was able to perform both of these functions.) I’m glad to see Tall Emu make the products equal in this area. It’s the right thing to do. But in the same breath, I also urge my readers to pay for the commercial software products they adopt and use regularly. It is equally the right thing to do.

So here’s a quick top-level list of what’s new in Online Armor 3. For more detail about what’s new, see Mike Nash’s post in the Tall Emu forums.

Online Armor 3 Beta 1 Highlights and New Features

• 32-bit Vista compatible
• Updated user interface
• Additional threat protection
• Updated help file (http://www.tallemu.com/webhelp3/Welcome.html)
• New language support, including French and Italian.
• Multi-desktop support
• Manage your hosts file with Online Armor’s HOSTS editor.
• “Trust All” option in the Safety Check Wizard allows fast setup on new computers.
• MAC Filtering
• Online Armor can be set not to start at next boot.
• Filter by program added to firewall status screen.
• Default “Run Safer” for unknown programs added to OA options.
• Keylogger detection detects more types of keylogger.
• Advanced-mode options screens allow finer control.