One month after closing the Sygate Technologies takeover, Symantec is cutting the Sygate Personal Firewall products because of overlap with the Norton Personal Firewall.
The Sygate Personal Firewall and Sygate Personal Firewall Pro products will no longer be available effective 30 November, Symantec spokesman Phil Weiler said Monday. Consumers will receive special upgrade pricing when they buy a replacement product from Symantec's Norton family of Internet security products, he said.
By pulling the Sygate Personal Firewall, Symantec is further reducing the options for people looking for a free firewall for their computer. Sygate offered the Sygate Personal Firewall at no cost and sold Sygate Personal Firewall Pro. Kerio Technologies has previously said it will discontinue its desktop firewall at the end of this year.
"While the Sygate products complement our enterprise offerings, there was an overlap on the consumer side of the business. After looking at the Sygate Personal Firewall technology we decided to discontinue the products and continue selling Norton Personal Firewall," Weiler said. In other news:
The Sygate Personal Firewall was downloaded more than 3.6 million times from CNET Download.com, a division of CNET Networks, the publisher of ZDNet UK.
Consumers looking for a free firewall still have options. These include Zone Labs' Zone Alarm, Microsoft's Windows Firewall and Jetico.
Symantec will continue to support and develop the Sygate enterprise product portfolio, including Symantec Sygate Enterprise Protection, Symantec Sygate On-Demand, Symantec Sygate Embedded and Symantec Sygate Network Access Control, Weiler said.
Symantec announced the takeover of Sygate in August. The deal was closed in October.
Talkback
Big business killing off a worthwhile and possibly the best firewall out there!
sygate was rubbish anyway,when my free zonealarm firewall went wrong i looked on download.com and found oniquad firewall was free so i installed it for free and its been as good as zonealarm so there are other free options out there beingahuman.blogspot.com will give more info on using oniquad firewall soon
I am outraged that symantec would think that somehow, after spending the time and effort involved with understanding sygate firewall pro, that I would actually PAY for the privilege of uninstalling it, installing theirs and spend all the time necessary to get it working properly. It absolutely amazes me how companies manage to find so many creative ways of shooting themselves in the foot. Why would I ever buy ANY symantec product EVER AGAIN? Did they think we would all stand up and cheer, that we would celebrate all the blood, sweat & tears it will take to convert? WHAT IN THE HE11 WHERE THEY THINKING???? Why not make a conversion option, figures all the sygate options and transfers them to the symantec firewall, does the uninstall, and then installs a FREE upgrade to symantec for however long was left in your sygate license. I didn't install anything FREE, I PAID $56 for my sygate firewall pro and I was SUPPOSED to receive ONE YEAR of updates. Thats in the agreement I signed when I registered my product. PISSED? I dunno, wouldn't you be?
i didn't see where it was junk.it let me know when ever something was happening.i thought it was a great firewall.i've had it for 3 years.when you install norton they want to take up alot of room.i'm on dail up and it takes forever.and some times it doesn't even do everything.with sygate it didn't take long.so i'm going to miss it.
It's just plain simple.....Sygate is a far superior product vis a vis Norton.Less resource hungry and excellent performance for free.Like many million users of sygate i'm fed up of norton products and their gouging ways.They are sure to loose more and more customers over time.
When people stop buying Symantec product they may see that what people need is a working and simple to use product and not a troyhorse
I have worked in IT as a senior system engineer for a large organisation (10.000 Users)for many years, and am a prolific home user "Sad" I Know.
I have, like others my views about companys such as symantic buying out a company just to close the access to free software such as - Sygate - which was in my humble opinion an excellent program.
But I think the point not to miss here is the "issue" and that is that in my 'again' humble opinion - all symantec programs are trouble - they are bloatware - very buggy - not value for money - poor performance products - stay clear off them.
If you want a good value for money Anti Virus application or firewall then buy the Trend Penicillin offers - fully Intergrated applications giving you all round protection - firewall - Anti Virus etc.
I started in IT 20 years ago and if my experience counts for anything - I have tried nearly all Anti Virus and Firewall offers on the market - Symantec Norton Anti Public Anti Free is a waste of space.
typical greedy buggers!. sygate(free and Pro) caught things that flew by zone alarm..now we'll have to deal with crappy macafee/norton spyware built into our firewalls.Those of us who can barely afford online service let alone buy someones over hyped,frequently *needing* upgrades, price gouging firewall are going to be slapped offline or risk the peril of being hacked,, thanks bastards!Henry J.Frick would be proud!
I tested several firewall products over a 6 month period and decided that Sygate was the best for my needs.
I then tried to buy a licence only to discover it had been bought and killed by symantec. They only wanted to sell me their product.
I bought ZoneAlarm but even with its enhancements I still find it clutsy - and does not do exactly what it says on the packet.
So ...does anyone know where I can get a Sygate licence. I would prefer an end-of-life not supported product to all that up-to-date stuff out there that does not quite work.
Never! You hear that Symantec? Ill never buy your crap products nor will I use them. I have been using this firewall for years! Slight learning curve but once understood it could be tweaked to near perfection. Now that Symantec’s guillotine has done away this wonderful firewall what’s left? Zone alarm, I may try again in the distant future but I have had problems with them in the past. I will keep using this until the software is no longer compatible with XP or until Vistas is out.
I would rather use the windows firewall than Symantec’s bullshit.
Like most things - GREED is the material thing, anything for a fast buck. Not I suggest a company to have any dealings with. Far better to go and use one of the other free compaines AND TAKE EVERY OPPERTUNITY to RUN DOWN SUCH A MEAN COMPANY.
Nice one Capitalism, you've killed another innovative and decent product. When I installed Norton AV 2004 previously, and found it vulnerable as it wasn't fully compatible with the OS, then found that Norton couldn't give me any support with a retail product, THEN found that they removed web pages actually printed in the manual and didn't even give the courtesy of an auto-redirect - I got annoyed! I said something similar-sounding to "fark Symantec and their bloatware development team". I haven't sniffed in their direction since, but I get annoyed any time I work with a machine being slowed down by their bloatware. Yes, they can secure a machine OK, but it's like curing insanity by drugging someone into a stupor - primative. I can secure a machine too - I do it by patching, pruning services and attack vectors and then installing EFFICIENT security software. Like Sygate PF, with its great granular control. Norton just leaves all services on, and 'stands in the way' - using what, 5 different processes running constantly? Rubbish method. Where's the monopolies commission when you need them?
"Sygate offered the Sygate Personal Firewall at no cost and sold Sygate Personal Firewall Pro." Um, they offered the Sygate Personal Firewall to Norton and you better believe Norton paid for it! Everyone that was using Sygate for free - Norton covered the check! i ain't mad at them for paving the way for innovation in Internet Security Products. we need that and they should get paid!