An important question for many customers, myself included. If Bullguard are going to continue to supply their Security Suite without a firewall then I will not be signing up for it again. I am still hopeful that the higher ups would have already taken steps to replace the current Windows fudge with a standalone firewall at least as good as the one they removed some months ago. The Agnitum Firewall was one of the best firewalls on the market and will be sorely missed by all who used it and trusted it. So any replacement cannot be just a few bells and whistles on top of the very user unfriendly Windows Firewall that was never very concerned with customer privacy or data security.
No matter how it gets dressed up the fact is any firewall security failures are no longer Bullguard's concern. From now on Bullguard can just blame Windows and its ever present vulnerabilities and refer people to Microsofts help pages. I would have some sympathy for Bullguard if the people there had not tried to pass off this mess as if they were doing me a favour.
Even today I looked through the pages of specifications and settings guides, aimed at new customers, and there is no mention of the demise of the firewall. It sounds like it always sounded as if you get a firewall when you pay for Bullguard. The protction guides still describe, and illustrate, the old Agnitum Firewall with its layers of settings and menus. Very little, if any, of these pages are applicable to people thinking about buying a licence today.
It seems very cynical that Bullguard thinks this is fair. People with some know how will quickly find that all is not as it should be. People who have little experience and who trust the automatic settings are at the mercy of a Bullguard and Windows mash-up to keep them safe.
This, on top of the handling of the situation from day one, is a potential PR disaster for Bullguard. Everyone wants the best protection they can get for their money. For a lot of years, for me, this was Bullguard. As the cyber criminals get more clever, and more numerous, I feel I need better and better protection. The last thing I want to do is downgrade my security in any way. So please, Bullguard, give us back a firewall that is an actual firewall.