F-Prot for Windows development stoped?

[lover]

Does anyone know if F-Prot for Windows gets still developed? I think
version three came out the last millenium and now they are still at 3.14b?
What will be the next big Windows release? 3.14c at the end of this year? It
seems the only F-Prot versions they care about are those for unix and linux.

 

[Ian.H]

Does anyone know if F-Prot for Windows gets still developed? I think
version three came out the last millenium and now they are still at 3.14b?
What will be the next big Windows release? 3.14c at the end of this year?
It seems the only F-Prot versions they care about are those for unix and
linux.

I normally find their mailing lists have a "pattern". There'll be no
activity for a while (obviously due to development) and then I get 3 or 4
through in the space of maybe 2-3 weeks where they release versions for
various platforms.

AFAIK, the *nix side of F-Prot is "new" (or at least publically).. so this
might be the reason you see more *nix application updates than windoze as
it's been a DOS and windoze product for a long time.. and the code may
have less bugs / work required as it's already code that's more "mature".

They definitely don't appear to stop supporting windoze.. this is where
all the action happens as such.. that'd be cutting off your nose to spite
your face IMO to stop windoze support now.

I have no affiliation with Frisk so my text above is pure opinion and my
thoughts alone =)



Regards,

Ian

 

[Boyd Williston]

Does anyone know if F-Prot for Windows gets still developed? I think
version three came out the last millenium and now they are still at
3.14b? What will be the next big Windows release? 3.14c at the end of
this year? It seems the only F-Prot versions they care about are those
for unix and linux.

Don't know, but there is no reason to make a major version number change
unless they feel that they have made major programming changes. Maybe the
same scanning techniques still work. And if it isn't broke, why fix it?

They are publishing updates very frequently, and that's what really
counts.

They don't seem interested in becoming a toolbox (like Norton), but are
sticking to their specialty. My guess is that they are depending mostly on
subscriptions, not initial purchases, for cash flow. So there isn't any
motivation to create a new 'version' to sell.

 

[lover]

There's a lot of room for improvements:

- Incremental signature updates
- Access to Sheduler and Updater through the RealTime Protector icon.
There's no need to have more than one icon in the tray.
- Refurbished interface. Do away this nineties style.
- For the peace of mind: the possibility to scan every filetype through the
context menu.

 

[Jeffrey A. Setaro]

There's a lot of room for improvements:

- Incremental signature updates

Do a Google search Frisk mentioned that incremental updates are planned
for version 4 a few months ago IIRC.

- Access to Sheduler and Updater through the RealTime Protector icon.
There's no need to have more than one icon in the tray.
- Refurbished interface. Do away this nineties style.
- For the peace of mind: the possibility to scan every filetype through the
context menu.

What makes you think that Frisk & company aren't working on these
things?

--
Cheers-

Jeff Setaro
jasetaro <at> mags.net
http://people.mags.net/jasetaro/
PGP Key IDs DH/DSS: 0x5D41429D RSA: 0x599D2A99 New RSA: 0xA19EBD34

 

[Frederic Bonroy]

lover schreef:

Does anyone know if F-Prot for Windows gets still developed? I think
version three came out the last millenium and now they are still at 3.14b?
What will be the next big Windows release? 3.14c at the end of this year? It
seems the only F-Prot versions they care about are those for unix and linux.

Oh, but isn't that better than Symantec's practice, which seems to
consist in selling a slightly improved (oh well, not always) product as
a wholly new version?

 

[Frederic Bonroy]

lover schreef:

- Refurbished interface. Do away this nineties style.

I don't use the Windows version so I couldn't care less. Still one can
only hope that if they are working on a new interface, they won't
succumb to the temptation of making it dependent on IE or as bloated as
that of NAV for example.

 

[James Egan]

Does anyone know if F-Prot for Windows gets still developed?

IIRC they posted here (or in acv) not too long ago that the dos
version was the only one not being developed.


Jim.

 

[Zebulon Blah]

Don't know, but there is no reason to make a major version number change
unless they feel that they have made major programming changes. Maybe the
same scanning techniques still work. And if it isn't broke, why fix it?

They are publishing updates very frequently, and that's what really
counts.

I must say, it's nice to see praise for good ol' F-PROT rather than the eternal
damnation heaped upon some of the other software. I'm perfectly happy
with F-PROT for DOS and I hope Frisk doesn't succumb to a case of the bloats.

 

[lover]

Sure it's better - I don't want to go it Symantecs way. But now F-Prot for
Windows seems to be in that part of a softwares life where it doesn't get's
developed any longer although still sporadically patches come out. Though
such software is actually dead, the manufacturer usually refuses any
comments and on the newsgroups rumors keep popping up about "something big
is about to come" and "it's not dead". The really true believers among the
users don't even want any changes because:

"why change it if it's not broke?"

It reminds me so much of the situation Adobe keeps FrameMaker in. In
adobe.framemaker is a wishlist thread with feature requests for the next
version which now has a few hundred postings and actually every poster knows
that their wishes will never be implemented. It's so sad.

Maybe the above is a bit exaggerated. I like F-Prot and the FRISK company
and love Iceland because it has no army but fairies and what not - but
F-Prot for Windows really needs a facelift and not just some Botox.

 

[Frederic Bonroy]

lover schreef:

Sure it's better - I don't want to go it Symantecs way. But now F-Prot for
Windows seems to be in that part of a softwares life where it doesn't get's
developed any longer although still sporadically patches come out. Though
such software is actually dead, the manufacturer usually refuses any
comments and on the newsgroups rumors keep popping up about "something big
is about to come" and "it's not dead". The really true believers among the
users don't even want any changes because:

"why change it if it's not broke?"

Exactly. It works fine, why change it? It has always been like this;
they have always stinted on major releases.

Okay, so it needs some improvements here and there. But there is nothing
dramatic.

 

[Frederic Bonroy]

James Egan schreef:

IIRC they posted here (or in acv) not too long ago that the dos
version was the only one not being developed.

What a pity.

I fear the day where only GUI scanners will be available. That will be
the Apocalypse, celebrated with fireworks of bloat.

 

[Fridrik Skulason]

Does anyone know if F-Prot for Windows gets still developed? I think
version three came out the last millenium and now they are still at 3.14b?
What will be the next big Windows release?

3.15 is due soon, but that will probably be the last of the 3.x series
- most of the Windows development team is busy working on version 4.0

-frisk

 

[null]

3.15 is due soon, but that will probably be the last of the 3.x series
- most of the Windows development team is busy working on version 4.0

-frisk

Do you have an estimate of the future of F-Prot DOS? A time when it
will no longer be useful on Win 9x/ME PCs since it no longer has the
capabiity of detecting/handling all the malware the Windows version
handles? Is this time near or rather far off? Will there be a version
4.0 of F-Prot DOS?


Art
http://www.epix.net/~artnpeg

 

[Frederic Bonroy]

(e-mail address removed) schreef:

Do you have an estimate of the future of F-Prot DOS? A time when it
will no longer be useful on Win 9x/ME PCs since it no longer has the
capabiity of detecting/handling all the malware the Windows version
handles? Is this time near or rather far off? Will there be a version
4.0 of F-Prot DOS?

Or at least a command line version?

 

[James Egan]

(e-mail address removed) schreef:


Or at least a command line version?

It is still getting engine updates and, of course, the defs but
nothing else.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?H3E921657


Jim.

 

[Oliver Betz]

(e-mail address removed) (Fridrik Skulason) wrote:

[...]

3.15 is due soon, but that will probably be the last of the 3.x series
- most of the Windows development team is busy working on version 4.0

Will there be a version not vulnerable by ZIP bombs (e.g. 42.ZIP)?

Will the command line version be continued/improved (e.g. long file
names _and_ "scanning all local disks"?

Oliver

 

[Ian.H]

James Egan schreef:


What a pity.

I fear the day where only GUI scanners will be available. That will be the
Apocalypse, celebrated with fireworks of bloat.

There's still fpcmd.exe =)

Most of the time, I never used the GUI scanner either (although it's a lot
nicer than the crap that Norton produce IMO).. I started with F-Prot on
DOS and was always "brought up" in command line environments so find that
fpcmd.exe does the trick just nicely =)



Regards,

Ian

 

[Fridrik Skulason]

(e-mail address removed) (Fridrik Skulason) wrote:

Will there be a version not vulnerable by ZIP bombs (e.g. 42.ZIP)?

We are adding bzip scanning, and due to the apperance of some bzip
bombs, we added a feature which should solve this problem - it will
work as well for 42.ZIP and other similar files.

Will the command line version be continued/improved (e.g. long file
names

Uhm....what do you mean - the command-line scanner (fpcmd.exe) *has*
long file name handling - it has been supported there since the
beginning.

_and_ "scanning all local disks"

That's not on the to-do list - probably because no customers have
requested that feature.

-frisk

 

[Oliver Betz]

We are adding bzip scanning, and due to the apperance of some bzip
bombs, we added a feature which should solve this problem - it will

^^^^^^^^^?
IMHO, the best would be a configurable timeout, with a nonzero return
value when it triggers.

Uhm....what do you mean - the command-line scanner (fpcmd.exe) *has*
long file name handling - it has been supported there since the
beginning.

_and_ "scanning all local disks"

at the moment, I can either use the Windows version supporting long
filenames, but no "scan all local disks", _or_ the DOS version not
able to scan deep directories. To scan a system automatically (e.g. at
logon or with scheduler), one needs some scripting stuff.

That's not on the to-do list - probably because no customers have
requested that feature.

[x] request <g>. Does it help to submit it at
http://www.f-prot.com/support/contact_support.html ?

On this occasion some more suggestions for fpcmd.exe:

It would be nice to have simpler access to fpcmd.exe. As far as I see,
I have to download and _install_ the whole F-Prot for Windows package
to get fpcmd? Bad enough that it costs more than three times the
amount of the DOS version, but I really don't want to _install_ the
Windows version since I see no advantage in using it.

Output filtering "unsupported compression method", "in use by another
application", "unknown file format", "in use by another application"
and maybe "encrypted" lines. Not everybody has perl, sed or awk
running to perform this with minimum effort. A typical Windows
instalation installs so many of these lines that the logfile is nearly
unuseable.

Oliver