StillSecure releases freeware IDS/IPS, Strata Guard Free

Within in the next few days, StillSecure will officially announce the release of our first freeware product, Strata Guard Free.  SG Free is a freeware version of our award winning Strata Guard IDS/IPS.  It is somewhat rate limited and has a few other minor features turned off, but otherwise is a complete version.  It sports the SG web based GUI, rule updates, advanced false positive reduction and more.  We have set up a web site for SG Free that will also have support message boards, FAQs, etc.  There is no official email or phone support included, but it is available as an option. You can download SG Free at http://www.stillsecure.org. If you are looking to upgrade from a pure Snort IDS or if your IDS/IPS is to much for you to handle right now, check out Strata Guard Free,

So why did we release it as freeware?  Good question.  This is our first foray into free products.  Because SG Free shares so much code with our commercial SG version, we did not feel comfortable releasing it as open source.  Also, as I have said earlier, 99% of the people who would use it are not interested in the source, but instead want a good free IDS/IPS.  Another reason was that there was no heritage here of it ever being open, so we did not change course or anything with it.  Why did we release it at all?  Well lets be straight, we think people who use it will see the value and may consider upgrading to the commercial version with support, etc.  However, another very real reason was the fact that over the years we have benefited so much from the open source and freeware community.  Our products which come as software appliances, meaning they contain the OS, database, everything, have many 3rd party components, that are either open source licensed or freeware licensed.  We wanted to give something back to the community.  We also think there are plenty of users who need an easy to use, powerful IDS/IPS and the other free offerings do not fill this void.

I invite you all to download and install the product to try it for yourself.  You will need a dedicated box, though shortly you can run it in a VMware session on a Linux box.  I would love to hear from you with your comments and experiences.  Everyone at StillSecure is very excited to see how the public reacts to our entry into the freeware community.