BlackICE slips up
Back when I was studying for my Security+ qualification my lecturer introduced me to BlackICE, which he rated highly as an intrusion detection system. Recently I wanted to improve the security of my PC and so I looked into getting a copy. First I found it difficult to determine who now owns BlackICE, as it seems that IBM at some point must have bought the software. Anyway, after downloading and installing it I immediately experienced issues with it - I couldn’t successfully add exceptions to rules, and more importantly it was unable to accurately report if it was running or not! Most annoying of all was that once I had decided that I’d had enough I couldn’t uninstall it! Fortunately this appears to be a common issue, and IBM provide a tool that will forcibly remove all traces of the application. Now I start from scratch and am looking for a decide IDS/firewall application that isn’t bloatware like Norton/McAfee. Any suggestions?