DoorStop X Security Suite (from $79) falls into the “hard to review, easy to like” category. Why? Well as a security application it runs behind the scene, so once you have set it up (easy), it runs effortlessly behind the scenes doing exactly what you want it to do – perfect!
To be honest security and the Mac is not something that I have ever really concerned myself with. However as I have added to the Mac collection, and retained a couple of Windows machines I have built up a mini network at home, as a result of which I have become more aware of the need for some good protection for anyone running a network at work (less so at home but it is better to be safe than sorry).
“The DoorStop X Security Suite is an integrated, comprehensive approach to securing your Macintosh on the Internet. Each component of the Suite is designed to work with and use features provided by the others.”
I will let you into a secret. Sometimes when reviewing an application that basically just does what it needs to do without any fuss I will ‘borrow’ chunks of information off the developers site. I can’t even do that here! Not only does the application do what you want it to do, but the site adopts a somewhat simple and straightforward approach as well. They have a couple of scenarios that you may like to check out but beyond that nothing of any real note.
Of course you need some understanding of what ports you use, but not much as the application sort of deals with that as well for you, and they give you a great list of what ports the Mac uses. I think the only thing that I needed to tweak a little was to get the connection to the Windows machines up and running after I started the application.
I really liked the Who’s There? feature of the suite, and imagine that anyone actively controlling a network would find this an extremely good feature.
Significantly more than a Firewall I recommend the full suite, but you can buy the components individually (DoorStop X Firewall, Who’s There Firewall Advisor and “Internet Security for Your Macintosh”)
If you are interested I suggest you head over to their blog and take a look at what they have to say.