ASHLAND, OR. -- May 2, 2005 -- Open Door Networks Inc. today announced that it was returning to the Macintosh firewall business with a free public beta of its DoorStop X firewall for Apple's new Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4) operating system. The product, built from the ground up for Mac OS X, gets Open Door back into the market it essentially started seven years ago.
DoorStop X, which also runs on Panther (Mac OS X 10.3) leverages Open Door's many strengths, including a decade providing easy-to-use Macintosh products (mainly in the Internet security arena) and five years acting as a Macintosh-focused Internet provider. It brings to market a firewall that is approachable, functional and highly secure. Users simply download DoorStop X and double-click the application to initiate its comprehensive protection and logging features. By default, all service-level access attempts from the Internet to the user's machine are blocked and logged. For users who wish to selectively but securely allow access to certain services on their machine, DoorStop X provides user-friendly lists of the most common services. Other features of DoorStop X include:
DoorStop X is particularly powerful when combined with Open Door's most recent Who's There? Firewall Advisor product (see "Open Door Networks ships Who's There? Firewall Advisor 1.5"). Who's There? displays DoorStop's (and other firewalls') log in an easy to understand format, analyzing that log and helping users notice those access attempts that they should be concerned with. Who's There? provides significant details on all logged access attempts, and helps users take action to get attacks stopped.
Open Door Networks started the Macintosh firewall market in 1998 with its groundbreaking DoorStop 1.0 product, which ran on Mac OS 8.1 through, eventually, 9.2. Originally intended to protect Macintosh servers, DoorStop proved even more critical in protecting end-user Macs as they migrated to now-common broadband Internet connections. DoorStop technology was licensed by Symantec Corporation and used as the basis for their Norton Personal Firewall for Macintosh product.
Although Mac OS X has included a basic firewall for some time, even Tiger's version of that firewall lacks the features required for many consumer and office uses. DoorStop X logs all access attempts from the Internet and provides other advanced features missing from Tiger's firewall. "Tiger's built-in firewall is a good start for basic users who simply want to block all access to their machine," said Alan Oppenheimer, president of Open Door Networks. "But DoorStop X is essential for any user who wants to record access attempts or selectively allow access to other machines on a home or work network, or the Internet."
The free public beta release of DoorStop X, along with additional details on the product and Macintosh firewalls in general, is available at http://www.opendoor.com/doorstop/ . The release will expire on July 15, 2005, before which time Open Door expects to have a shipping version of the product available. Pricing has not yet been determined.
Open Door Networks, Inc. is a leading provider of Internet security solutions for the Macintosh. Open Door was founded in 1995 by Alan Oppenheimer, co-creator of the AppleTalk network system and co-author of the book "Internet Security for Your Macintosh: A Guide for the Rest of Us." Open Door's mission is to provide Macintosh users with Internet solutions that are as easy-to-use and as powerful as the Macintosh itself. Open Door Networks is based in Ashland, Oregon.
DoorStop and Who's There? Firewall Advisor are trademarks of Open Door Networks, Inc. Other trademarks are held by their respective owners.