I am a 25 year support vet. I have setup many gateways/routers. Support for this unit is a convoluted mess. My client purchased this unit for $200 a couple years ago. I am setting it up for him now. We don't want and don't need the extra pay services for this unit. It was purchased for its range capabilities. I am spending way to much time with this unit.
I want from this unit what I would get from any $50 gateway.
1. Firmware updates - manual is fine
2. No damn 5 user limit
3. SPI and NAT firewall
4. USB print server
5. NAS support
6. Support without a fee
7. All the bells and whistles that come with ANY $50 router. Without limitations!
8. Support for 802.11n

If my client needs to pay one penny more for the BASICS I will recomend he throw the z100g away and get a REAL gateway!

Now, where the hell do I get the firmware? And what are the answers to items 2,3,6,8?

Dear Sir,

The support subscriptions for the Z100G costs only 79$ annualy, and covers all the services for 5 or 15 nodes, I hardly think there are many 50$ gateways that provide you with online updates of antivirus, antispam, web content filtering and smart defense services.
Also it extends the Hardware Warranty for the device and provides with Weekly security reports and firmware updates.

The node limit can be upgraded to 15 nodes one time fee, USB Printer Server is supported, you do not have to pay to get support, as long as its not an issue that requires firmware upgrade you will get full support.
As for the 802.11n, it is currently in our Roadmap.

I don't mean to offend but. . .


Well I guess first off I would let you know that this is not a "gateway" per say, it is a device that supports the Unified Threat Methodology (UTM) providing several layers of protection above and beyond most of the standard fair devices in the $50 dollar range. This device works fairly well if the time is taken to set it up properly and of course there is the implied assumption that you have RTM and understand that it is not a Linksys or Dlink that a home user would buy at a local store.

Now getting back to you and the device, if you had spent any time doing any research of the device you would know that a valid service contract is needed to get firmware updates. Just like Sonicwall, Watchguard, Juniper, Fortinet, and so on. As noted above these devices are much more than just “gateways”, but can be configured to support just about anything while providing network perimeter security that a $50 device normally does not. There is a 5 user limit that can be upgraded to 15 but that is a hard limit at this time and if you or your client needs more than that then you should probably be looking at a different family of device.

SPI and NAT = Yes, but again RTM or actually ask a question that gives enough information that we can supplement your 25 years of support experience.

USP print server = Yes – see above

Actually see above for the answers to all your questions except for #8 and looks like Sofaware answered that one for you.

Well, retweak brings several issues to the table. #1 - I want the ability to update my firmware. #2 - No limits, my data does not go through Sofaware servers, so why should I have limits on a device I bought. #4 The USB print server is limited to certain printers. If you do not have a brand that is confirmed to work with the device, you maybe out of luck.

I am not opposed to paying to update antivirus, antispam, and web content filtering, if I use those services. For example, not everyone has kids and requires web filtering. Maybe services should be on an à la carte basis rather than bundled.

My subscription is up 01-Jul 09 and IMHO, I am not sure I will subscribe again. In the past when I have turned on all the services I paid for, the connection choked down. I can turn all the services off and have fantastic speed.

Again, IMHO, I don't believe the device has the processing power required when paid for services are on. For those who are smart enough, go buy a PC with a P4 1.0 or 2.0 processor and build your own firewall. I have and found it is far superior to the Z100G.

Place a few more ZZZZ's with the model number, I think the device is sleeping when it should be working. Just a thought.

Again if you take a look at other devices that businesses / enterprise customers use you will find that firmware updates are part of the subscription that you pay for. The feature set this device has puts in a different family of products, not normally associated with devices for home networking. If you want to update firmware buy a cheap device that has open source coding such as a Linksys.

If you were to buy any of the type of devices with these options you will find that you have node limits on them, normally at the 10, 25, unlimited and so on. Just so you have something to compare to a SonicWall TZ190 with unlimited node access and all the services lit for a year cost around $1000 or so (some more some less shop around), add wireless and you go up again.

The latest firmware updates have take care of most of the slow down issues that I have noticed but sure there is always room for improvement.

As you noted you can always go build yourself a great system with all of these features (Astaro has a free 10 node limit security gateway that is excellent if you have an extra system laying around that you can configure.)
Not a fan boy (I have a linksys (with hacked firmware to increase power for the wireless) and an Astaro system), just think that his is a pretty good product for the price

quote:

Originally posted by gulbrich:

The latest firmware updates have take care of most of the slow down issues that I have noticed but sure there is always room for improvement.

Ah, but heaven help you if you don't have the "latest firmware" and your subscription is up. Who in their right mind is going to pay $79 to upgrade their firmware? It is outright insanity in my opinion.

Sure, the antivirus, antispam, web content filtering and smart defenses should be charged for without a doubt but crippling the device of features that others offer as standard is just completely backwards in thinking.

- a software imposed 5 user limit.
- no manual firmware updating (what happens if there is a security flaw in a firmware, we have to PAY for the fix?)
- VPN tunneling also crippled when the hardware can do it.

These features being bundled in with the paid service is what is really killing the chances of success for the Z100G. Otherwise this is a fantastic device which I have used without issue.

Don't want to get flamed here, but...

I'm paying for this service yet they are reluctant to provide support for the PS3 to get it out of NAT Type 3, if I'm paying money for it shouldn't I get something that allows me to connect my devices so that I can enjoy the online connectivity?

If there was some support for the PS3 so that I could get NAT Type 2 I would be the happiest man on earth with this device, seriously...this is the only thing keeping me from renewing my subscription next year when it ends.

I aggree. Their should be support for this. This is why I am selling z100g. I would recommned you not renew your subscription. In my opinion you you don't need this much securiyt for a home network unless you are operating a web server.

After this thread, I have decided the annual fee is just not worth it. I may sell my router as well.

quote:

Originally posted by midnightriderz:
After this thread, I have decided the annual fee is just not worth it. I may sell my router as well.

Send me a PM. i might make you an offer.

quote:

Originally posted by retweak:
I am a 25 year support vet. I have setup many gateways/routers. Support for this unit is a convoluted mess. My client purchased this unit for $200 a couple years ago. I am setting it up for him now. We don't want and don't need the extra pay services for this unit. It was purchased for its range capabilities. I am spending way to much time with this unit.
I want from this unit what I would get from any $50 gateway.
1. Firmware updates - manual is fine
2. No damn 5 user limit
3. SPI and NAT firewall
4. USB print server
5. NAS support
6. Support without a fee
7. All the bells and whistles that come with ANY $50 router. Without limitations!
8. Support for 802.11n

If my client needs to pay one penny more for the BASICS I will recomend he throw the z100g away and get a REAL gateway!

Now, where the hell do I get the firmware? And what are the answers to items 2,3,6,8?

The firmware is automatically downloaded to the unit usually in the wee hours of the morning once youve sucessfully registered the device as long as you have a valid subscription

2. This is a fact of life on professional gear. you pay per seat.. At least its a one-time fee and then its really a non-issue

3. Thats what your paying for..and you get it

4. There is a built in USB printer server, albeit it is a little picky on devices, and has a few peculiarities (bugs)..it likes to change port numbers if you reboot the router or printer sometimes.

5. No it does not do built-in NAS.. they are trying to avoid some of the OSS licensing issues with giving away source code i presume on this. Most home devices use a linux based OSS solution which can cause patent issues to a parent company if they dont want to OSS the whole damn router

6.The support is free as long as you keep your service contract (better than some other pro hardware, as well as the updates.. Your paying for software updates no different than an antivirus solution)

7. Highly unlikely since its not an OSS device but they seem to try to put in a majority of them without diluting the value of their buisness products.

8.N support... N is a *DRAFT* standard, as in... it has YET to be made official. I can see them not wanting to touch this with a 10 foot pole.. there are still incompatibility issues with N based devices between vendors (interop).. Rather buy a cheap crappy router/ap with dual radios if i want to play with N, but ITS NOT A STANDARD YET.. is a damn good reason not to put it in a device...

Dont know if any of you remember VFC with modems and how it was not "quite a standard"..

Everyone, I need some advice, I have been running the Z100g for about 2.5 years and I am disappointed in the through-put speed from internal PC to another, plus I have countless issues with bridging, where my WiFi devices cannot see the wired devices. I would be willing to drop the Z100 for anything else, but I need a good web contect filter, I have a teenager, I need a print server for 2 printers, and I need for the wired MAC to communicate with the WiFi Windows machines, any suggestions?
I am willing to drop the Z100 just because I cannot communicate between machines WiFi vs Wired. WiFi to wired works, but WiFi machine to WiFi machine does not work.
Thanks,
Frustrated.

I bought a Linksys wrt router and loaded the Tomato firmware and have not looked back. The router is much snappier and have no issues connecting to wired or wireless devices. You can solve the content issue by creating a free account at opendns.org and follow the instructions on how to filter your web content.

I have no problems with my ZoneAlarm Secure Wireless Router Z100G at all.
I have no problems connecting any of my devices to it at all
Being wired or wireless

If you use the Linksys series routers, even with Tomato, dd-wrt, freeWRT, etc just be aware that Linksys routers are the easiest hack targets out there. They have a stateful inspection Firewall that does not hold a candle to the deep inspection deployed by the Sofaware firmware that uses Checkpoint's SmartDefense. Of course it slows the traffic down; its actually doing something!

The WRT series is ineffective against the most sophisticated and prolific attacks out there such as:

• Authenticated XSS
  
• DNS Hijacking
  
• Session Hijacking
  
• Default WEP (hopefully no one uses this anymore!)
  
• “Silent” CSRF
  
• Authentication Bypass
  
• CSRF UPNP

all which are blocked by the Z100G.

I would recommend that you use a very good firewall and antivirus product on each computer as you should with the Z100G, but the one problem with most home routers (Linksys, Dlink, Belkin, ASUS, etc) is that the hackers are hacking the routers, as this does not alert the users and can capture data from all workstations without being noticed. I see hundreds of these attempts weekly on my Z100G and who knows what data they would have access to if I had one of these smaller routers.

I won't argue with the sometimes absurd and dangerous advice I see many novices give on this board as that just wastes everyone's time. What i will say is the Z100G is a far better security device than $149 will buy you anywhere and if you think a $60 router is going to protect you from sophisticated hackers in Russia and China, then you probably better change your passwords and bank account numbers daily because its not a matter of if they will hack you but when. Look at your logs; where are most of your attacks coming from?

Finally, I am not happy with Sofaware support and update activity, but the unit is still the best security device out there. Most of the problems are configuration issues. My runs great with six users and no QoS, but I don't have the Playstation or Xbox so I don't deal with that bandwidth issue either.

Be careful out there.

Rocket,
I do love the security of being behind the Zone Alarm box, but I get so frustrated at the administration of the unit.
Do you know a good way to configure the box to allow the wifi to communicate with wifi and allow the wifi to communicate with wired machine. I finally had things working just the way it should, the wifi machines could see each other and I was able to do drive mapping, it was something to do with IP Spoofing and I made the changes and bingo it all worked. Two weeks after making the change I had to power cycle the router (it locked up) and once it came back I am back to where I was with no communications between the wifi machines, the mapped drives no longer work. All machines are on the same subnet and bridged together and all machines and ping the rounter and internet, but not each other.....why?
If I can get the all machines talking to each and keep it that way, I will never get rid of the firewall.
Thanks,
Frustrated :)

Do you have bridging enabled? I have one IP scheme 192.168.200.x for all devices through bridging. Bridging does expose the wired side to wireless security risks, so make sure you enable "Firewall Between Members" in the bridging setup.

The challenge with seeing devices on the Z100G is that the Windows protocol WINS is not IP routable so it cannot traverse the wire side to the wireless side because they are in separate subnets. By bridging, we create the "Linksys" effect of every device in the same subnet, but we have a firewall between the two sides for continued security. This does not make all communications between each side as open as the Linksys devices, but it gets you to be able to route between them. You can use third party networking software like Network Magic to make drive mapping and printer sharing a breeze. Just be aware that NM has a few bugs of its own on Vista.

To make this simpler without bridging, Sofaware has added internal DNS to the router, but I already had bridging working and have not experimented with the DNS function. If they would only upgrade the processor and perhaps add Gigabit throughput with QoS, they would have a remarkable device. I also wish their consumer support was half what their business support is!

Which brings me to addressing the title of this thread: YES! By all means this is not a business device. Your "client" should upgrade to the SMB or VPN-1 products. Good security should not be a luxury, it's a MUST!

quote:

Originally posted by Ido:
Dear Sir,

The node limit can be upgraded to 15 nodes one time fee.

That node upgrade is a one time fee? Not yearly?

Yes. The fee is one time. After that, your normal annual fee is charged for each year and covers all 15 users.