Intego NetBarrier 2003 is a program that has had wide acceptance within the Apple/Macintosh community and now has migrated into the more lucrative Personal Computer market. It comes in an attractive package about the size of a VHS tape, only thinner, and contains a CD plus the registration code.

When I booted the CD I was given the choice to explore the disk, to install Adobe Acrobat 5.05 or to install the program. IMPORTANT! If you have an earlier version of Acrobat installed, close NetBarrier and remove the earlier version. Then, install 5.05. If you don’t, you risk chaos as the versions fight each other for duplicated files.

Once past the Acrobat hurdle I opened the manual on the CD and found a mere 177 pages of information and instruction for setting up the program and using its’ many features.

Like most software today the program is many things more than the firewall I wanted. It includes an “antivandal” program, an Internet filter, and the ability to monitor network activities.

When I loaded the programs I was prompted to go to the Intego site to update the most current version of the programs and that went well as did registration, although typing in 22 letters and numbers took close attention to detail.

Now, let’s talk about the firewall which was the reason I wanted to try the program.

I followed the massive instructions and turned it loose for several hours and I went to several Web sites that will probe the computer free. This is to see if the firewall is working. I particularly like Shields Up. I was told that “my computer doesn’t exist on the Internet” which meant that the system was working.

I went to Securitymetrics and they found 3 of the 22 ports tested as “possible problems” but the basic idea was that we were OK. That is the good news.

The Firewall also serves as a protection against “Trojan Horses” which are programs hidden within other programs. It checked the machine and found none.

The Antivandal program looks for signs of intrusions, stops them and sends an alert. The site creating the problem will be placed on a “Stop” List to prevent it from getting onto the machine unless you step in and prevent that from happening. You can also add sites to the list and they can’t send you anything.

There is a “trusted” list involved which allows you to list sites that you will always accept information from, sites such as your Internet provider, e-mail list, etc.

You are also notified if a program tries to connect to the Internet without your permission so it takes a while to set the program up to function as a protection.

Here’s the bad news.

Did it work? Yup, sure did. Did it work well? Well, now, that is a horse of a different color.

You see, while it functioned as designed, it slowed our e-mail down about 95%. I thought I was back to the days of the 300 baud modem and that is slow. It took about five minutes to download four messages that normally download in about two seconds. While it was scrubbing everything against all kinds of databases, it just really brought things to a snails pace and I don’t like that.

If the program served as a firewall only, then it would probably be worth the $59.95 list price. Since it crams other programs into the suite, I think I’ll just go without it and, as soon as I install Windows XP, I’ll use the firewall included in that program.

If you keep your virus program definitions up to date you should be able to avoid most problems. Using NetBarrier just isn’t worth it to me.