Hi, I’m Bruce Naylor with FrugalTech and you know I love to save money with technology. I love to make money with technology. Sometimes I talked to you about software that you got to purchase and then I sometimes I like to talk about open sources software. I think I found an incredible deal in network security called the Untangle Open Source Network Gateway.
Listen if your business or your firm is paying expensive licensing fees or subscriptions for things like antivirus and anti-spam and anti-phishing and firewall and all these things, all these different components, you can get these at absolutely no cost from Untangle.
Now currently, it’s version 6.0 and it includes different modules so these are virtual appliances if you will and what does Untangle has done is they’ve taken some of the very best open source security projects and did their magic tune and made them easy to use in a, I like to use the analogy of a virtual rack and the interface is so easy to use and the configure is incredible.
Okay, so what are these 12 different modules that you get for free? Well, the first is a spam blocker and that can work with SMTP. It can work with IMAP. It can work with POP3 accounts and includes the three fitting features as well, so you can just block e-mail at the SMTP level. It comes with the phishing blocker and spyware blocker or a web filter. It’s a very good web filter, by the way. A virus blocker which is the Clam AV. It’s very, very good. Intrusion prevention, protocol control and attack blocker, firewall, open VPN, a report module and it can be configured as a Router. Well that’s a lot of stuff, absolutely free.
There are two versions of untangle. One is called the Re-Router and that installs on XP Professional. It’s a VMware type machine. It works like magic really in the social networking and redirecting all the gateway traffic to it and it works as an inline filter. It works very, very well but it’s designed for smaller network primarily home networks, maybe a small business. I’ve had it running here for a couple weeks now and the only problem I’ve really seen with it is after a few days, there is a memory leak in there and eventually have to reboot the XP box in order to restore my internet access so that's something that you should bear in mind.
Now the other version are commercial quality version of it and by the way both versions are identically the same but the commercial version of it, basically is an image that will install the operating system and the untangle gateway on a bare metal install. It works very nicely on the X86 Platform although you need to go to untangle and check the hardware requirements.
Listen, good processor and lots of RAM are your friend on this one. It can install on bare metal, VMware, Adobe or in Bluetooth so all these things seems very, very cool. The Re-Router does work well like I said but there is a memory leak that you need to take a look at. So what we’re going to do is, we’re going show you, here in a moment, a segment on what this appliance looks like, the software looks like, remember it’s absolutely free.
Okay so here we are logging into the untangle gateway and this is running out a little bit slower machine so this might take a few seconds to get booted up here and here we go. Good, so this is the rack analogy I was telling you about earlier and this is your spam blocker, your phishing blocker, spyware blocker, web filter, your virus blocker, intrusion prevention, your protocol control and your firewall and we'll just scroll down here and we go. And here we can see the open VPN, your attack blocker, the untangle reports.
So these modules right here are on this default rack. You just can turn these off and on, just use the ones you want by pressing the power button. There you go and let's go on back at the top.
Now for example the spam blocker, here we're just showing you all these modules have their settings. For example, we're using SMTP and we're using the turpetting feature in Untangle. On the left side of the screen is your applications that you can purchase, the commercial add-ons I was telling you about, Kaspersky, support, policy manger, your active directory, connector, configuration backup and if you click on this tab, this takes you to the configuration of the Untangle server, your networking administration, e-mail, upgrade system, information, all that sort of thing.
So this is kind of the tour of Untangle that’s very basic. There are your stuffs for the system as well as hard drive activity and free memory as well. So how does Untangle make its money? Well they do it by some what they call commercial add-ons.
Now these add-ons can be purchased separately or in a bundle. When you subscribe with these either on a monthly basis or an annual basis and the licensing is based on the number of computers on your network. Those licenses go in a range of 1 to 10 users. It's 11 to users, 51 to 150 users and a 151 plus so that's good to know when you're dealing with the commercial add-ons.
So what are these add-ons that Untangle sell? Well, there is support, life support versus with, you know, and the other open source, project you do have, maybe some forums or something. This actually gets you real support technician.
There's an active directory connectors so you can utilize some of the functionality from Untangle with your Windows domain. There's a policy manager that lets you create virtual racks for different groups and employees based on your policies that you set up.
There's a branding manager, now that’s used predominantly for for VAR’s or Value Added Resellers or man services providers unless they input their own logo and that sort of thing down there.
Again, there's another great can add-on now called the ESoft Web Filter. Now look, the web filter and Untangle, there's a great job that it does not always protect you against the HTTPS. To secure websites, it really doesn't work out well with those ESoft Web Filter does and it’s very, very powerful.
You can add Kaspersky, the antivirus to your Untangle Gateway Platform as well. There's a PC remote tool and that’s good tool for manage service providers to use and then there’s a remote access portal. Now that is what allows your users to actually use network resources or use a remote in their desktop and work all through secured connection to the internet.
As I’ve said these subscriptions run either monthly or annually. Untangle does have a two-year subscription but I think that's just wrapping up right now. Listen, Frugal Brothers also offers a pre-configured appliance. As hardware, the Untangle Gateway with that add-ons, all done for you so it’s just literally plug and play and that will make sure if you want to talk us about that, do let us know.
So there you have Untangle Open Source Network Gateway is a complete software unified threat management package that includes all these wonderful tools, you know VPS, spam, phishing, web filters, all these sort of things at no charge and internet with soft, this maybe just enough for what your company needs and you don't require any of the add-ons to it.
Keep in mind there is some pretty powerful hardware requirements and maybe not that powerful but certainly it depends on the number just like go to the Untangle website, take a look at the forms and get an idea, if you're not looking for pre configured appliance. But this tool can save your company thousands of dollars and expensive licensing fees.
Believe me when you start talking to the companies, they are making old products, these appliances like firewall appliances and threat management appliances, they can have some super subscription fees. So listen, save your self a lot of time hustling money, get a nice secured network. The free version may be all you need. I'm Bruce Naylor, your FrugalTech and make sure to visit us at www.frugalbrothers.com. Hey, I’ll talk to you later.
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