Entered CNET Catalog: 04/05/2007
SKU: CNETEEYEBLINKPERSONAL
Manufacturer: eEye Digital Security
Manufacturer description
Blink Personal provides the most comprehensive, non-intrusive, endpoint protection solution available today: protection for up to 3 systems; blocks and removes viruses, spyware, worms, and other malicious activity; protects against Identify Theft and Phishing attempts; protects against hackers and unauthorized system changes; protects against "zero-day" attacks; helps to improve overall security health. Blink Personal brings to the consumer an unprecedented level of protection, in a single, small-footprint client that requires very little user interaction and setup.CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 04/09/2007
eEye Digital Security, famous for its discovery of the Code Red worm back in 2001, has done a very responsible thing by porting one of its enterprise tools, Blink, down to the desktop level. And Blink Personal edition is available for free. It will be seen as impressive for advanced users, and a little overwhelming for average users. The Internet security suite provides the basics--antivirus, antispyware, antiphishing, and personal firewall--with more controls for intrusion protection, buffer overflows, system registry protection, and vulnerability assessment. But average users won't want --or ever use--all the configuration options included here. Free or not, casual users are better off with a more user-friendly suite from Norton.
Setup
For the moment, Blink Personal is free for a limited time for personal use, although eEye may continue this offer indefinitely. Blink Professional, designed more for the small business, costs $59 for a single-seat license, with pricing up to one hundred seats available. Blink Personal and Professional both work on Windows 2000 through Windows XP. Windows Vista is not currently supported.
Downloading the suite is a chore. First, you must submit information to receive the actual download link via e-mail. Once downloaded and installed, you must once again submit personal information to register the product. The free Blink Personal will only run on one machine. Addition machines require additional sign-ups. This is similar to the program used by
Should you want to remove Blink Personal, there's no uninstall icon provided. You'll need to use the Windows Control Center Add or Remove Programs. Unlike other programs, Blink asks if you want to remove any configuration information and also the license to use the product. Too many vendors remove the application but leave the license info behind, sometimes fouling installations of competing software. After our program uninstall and a reboot, we found no traces of Blink Personal remaining on our system, including the license information within the system registry that we requested be removed. Of all the suites we reviewed, only ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7 completely uninstalled itself.
Interface
To be user friendly, Blink Personal needs to provide a better interface. In porting the tool down from its enterprise version, eEye gives desktop users an inelegant interface similar to any of Microsoft's Sysinternal tools offerings. While Blink Personal follows the Microsoft Windows XP design look and feel--with an expandable navigation panel along the left, and a main window to the right--the Windows-blue coloring and Microsoft-esque icons can be confusing to the casual user. For example, at first glance, Blink Personal appears indistinguishable from the Windows Control Center.
While other security suites offer a system status report up front, alerting users to run updates or scans where necessary, there is none of that here. The closest thing to an overall status report is one produced by the vulnerability assessment tool (see below).
Then there's the naming conventions which might be confusing to some. For example, antiphishing protection is found under Identity Theft Protection. System Firewall is a separate listing from Application Firewall. Some features, like antivirus and antispyware, are simply renamed as Anti-Malware. While these names are technically correct, the average user may struggle to find where they need to go to schedule or run the antivirus protection or an antispyware scan.
Once in the proper section, however, you'll find options to disable the feature, and then, a sometimes-long list of rules or the option to create new rules. Most people won't be creating their own rules lists. While eEye provides the most granular to configure of all the Internet security suites we reviewed this year--a boon for the more advanced and technical users--most of these added features will go unused by the average user.
Features
As stated, Blink Personal goes beyond the usual expectations in an Internet security suite--antivirus, antispyware, a personal firewall--to include more antivulnerablity tools, not surprising since that is eEye's forte.
For antivirus protection, eEye uses three technologies: sandbox, behavioral heuristics, and signature-based protection. The sandbox and signature-based antivirus technologies come from Norman Antivirus; and although the APIs come from Norman, eEye developers built all of the hooking and system-level components themselves. The third level of antivirus protection, the behavioral heuristics, was designed by eEye. The antispyware protection and personal firewalls, both system and application, also were designed by eEye.
Host-based intrusion, buffer overflow, and system registry protection are found in pricier suites offered by major security vendors like McAfee and Symantec, but eEye says its tools go further. Indeed they do, with configuration settings for intrusion protection that might swamp the average user who only wants to know that such protection is available.
The antivulnerability tools are unique to Blink Personal. These include application execution protection, zero-day protection, and vulnerability assessment. The vulnerability assessment tool is perhaps the best feature overall. In an instant, Blink captures information about your system and compares it to the eEye vulnerability lists, providing a detailed report of which Microsoft patches you might be missing, or other work-arounds you should know up front.
Performance
In terms of antivirus protection for your PC, we cite results from two leading independent antivirus testing organizations. In the latest test results from
AV-Comparatives.org, the Norman Antivirus engine used by eEye Blink Personal earned an Advanced (medium-to-high) rating, catching 93 percent of all malware tested. Norman Antivirus was not tested with our second source, CheckVir.com.
CNET did not test the antispyware features, nor the personal firewalls within Blink Personal, and so we did not assign this product a Performance subrating.
Support
Technical support for Blink Personal includes two PDF files, one for an installation guide and the other for user documentation. The latter, a 165-page document, is more than adequate and more thorough than any we've seen provided by the paid Internet-security suite vendors. Online support for Blink Personal is limited to online community forums. The only e-mail support available is for reporting bugs in the program.
Conclusion
Blink Personal is a great security suite for those in the know, with many configurable tools at a price that can't be beat--it's free. But casual users of security software will want more hand-holding and built-in help, so we recommend buying an Internet Security suite that is much more user-friendly.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
User Rating: 
9/10
Top Notch Endpoint Protection in an All-In-One Package!
Pros: A highly tuneable security suite for individuals that like to be able to fine tune firewall and IPS rules to fit their needs. One of the only security suites that has a Vulnerability Assessment Scanner (Retina) built into it.
Cons: May confuse a lot of the less computer savy individuals with some of its settings and alerts at times.
Two of the biggest improvements to note are:
1. New Patent Pending ActiveX Protection
2. Upgraded Norman AV engine
To see the latest release notes on versions of Blink that are released go to:
http://forums.eeye.com/forums/13.aspx
===============================================================
Here is some general information, tips, hints and information I would like to point out.
After the free one year trial of Blink is up, I have found that if you un-install it completely from your system and then clean your system of any remaining files or registry entries, you can install a newly downloaded copy of the free version and you "should" be able to get another free year out of it. I personally have been using Blink Professional Edition (because you receive support via a Customer Support Portal and trouble tickets that you submit). Personal Edition users receive support via eEye's Forums. Blink will work for all of the Firefox lovers out there, however, eEye designed Blink to provide you maximum protection if you?re using IE - eEye specializes in WINDOWS OS's and software only primarily. With this being said, they have what is called an "IE Plug-in" (which is not something you will see visually anywhere) however, this allows Blink to scan SSL connections (like a SSL proxy can, but it is not a proxy) and it also gives it the ability to parse out HTML and other scripts in WebPages to identify web based attacks.
The Personal Edition of Blink was designed for the everyday user (if you use its out of box settings), however, Blink truly IMO, fits your knowledgeable users much better. It has the capability to allow someone that is skilled in such area of firewalls and IPS's to custom create rules, fine tune its detection abilities, and really lock down one's systems.
The biggest thing that separates Blink from a lot of the other security suites out there is the fact that it has eEye's Vulnerability Assessment program (aka "Retina") built into it. For someone that wants to keep up on the latest patches, fixes, and misconfiguration issues on their system this is a must! For the everyday user, Retina's report that it outputs may be a bit confusing if they do not understand what it is trying to display and show them.
Finally, Blink also uses a detection method that most other security suites do not. This method is called "Protocol Analysis". I don't mean this either by Blink scans a port associated with a protocol either, I mean it by Blink scans the Protocol itself looking for attacks within it. Most upper end security technologies are able to do this, but it is hard to find such a capability in the applications that are made now days to protect desktop and server platforms.
To sum things up, quite honestly, IMO you can't compare Blink with a lot of the other security "All-in-One" suites out there, because it is focused on doing something entirely different. Blink is attempting to protect you from vulnerabilities that exist in software programs and OS's. It is trying to protect you from the attack vector that delivers the "payload" (i.e. the worm, virus, Trojan horse, rootkit, etc) to your system. It is not concerned mainly with building a wall around the infection once you are already infected; it is trying to protect you from the avenues of attack that deliver the infection. Most of the other security suites focus too much on the "Payload" and the outbound leakage of information after it is already too late! Yes, there is a place for that in security, but with today's rise of vulnerabilities in software applications (because of sloppy coding and such) these other applications will not protect you. To a lot of people this is difficult to explain, but to someone that understands, it makes a lot of sense. This is why I made the statement that it is hard to compare Blink with the rest.
You can download the free version of Blink Personal Edition from:
http://free-antivirus.eeye.com/
Keep in mind; make sure you un-install any other security applications that you may have on your system before installing Blink. Blink is meant to cover all of the aspects of the different layers of a system?s security. Adding more to this already complex equation will only give you a headache in the end. You may experience system slowdown and other software conflicts if you try to do this. My personal recommendation is, if you?re going to be serious about using Blink, install it on a fresh system and then install the rest of your applications. You will save yourself a world of confusion and extra work if you do this?trust me.
User Rating: 9/10
Protection from rapidly changing threats on the net.
Pros: IPS protection. Norman AV sandbox/heuristics. Builtin Retina VA scanner. Backed by eEye Research team. Clean user interface. Responsive support via forums. Highly customizable. Free security package; better than free av's and others.
Cons: "Web style" interface. Needs more details on advanced options. Can't batch import a list of banned IP's. More details during a malware scan. Bummed that I can't read eEye's research advisories anymore...
"Oh no, I downloaded a malicious Word file from my sister," and better yet, "Another Microsoft patch, didn't I just patch this like last month? [and I click install update later]", well, 1) Blink will stop that Word file from exploiting that overflow vulnerability and 2) Blink receives protection updates for those Microsoft patches that you forget to install (and that malware or hackers could exploit) -- pretty nice, in fact, incredibly nice sense of security.
That brings me to the antivirus, Norman, it uses sandbox technology, so it will examine the intent of a piece of software rather than only looking at its cover; sometimes you just can't judge a book... ;] If you ever browse Norman's website you can see that they are pretty hardcore about malware. (Read up on sandbox technology if you have a chance.)
Lastly, I can customize this app left and right with my security settings: create my own IPS signature, add banned IPs, tune the firewall just how I like it, run vulnerability assessment scans, restrict access to Windows registry keys (such as "Run"), and prevent other applications from running other applications. So not only do I get protection from software flaws and malware, but I can also customize other potentially weak links on my computer.
If you think about it, people really didn't know about software vulnerabilities persay back when virus's starting hitting computers, heck people don't realize it now. The fact is that that the majority of systems on the net these days are compromised by hackers/worms/etc that take unfortunate advantage these vulnerabilities.
I've seen and used many security products, from the old school firewalls and av's to the hyped up yellow box solutions. I've ran 3 to 5 diferent products just to do the job that Blink does in one product. I know this sounds cliche, but none of them have matched what Blink has to offer; especially when you get a year for free. Let's face it, the internet isn't what it used to be and it is evolving at such a pace that we cannot keep track of every little detail. Bottom line is that Blink was designed to protect you from the rapidly changing threats on the internet. Take my advice, you don't have to be a paranoid internet user like myself to appreciate good security.
User Rating: 9/10
Blink Now Supports Vista! (Now version 4.0 as of July 2008)
Pros: Continued Below ...
Cons: Norman's AV component
eEye Digitial Security's Blink Personal and Professional Editions contain the following items of interest that are worth pointing out:
1. Inbound/Outbound Filtering Firewall:
- Broken into two sub-sections; an Application Firewall and System Firewall.
2. Protocol Based IPS:
- Covers attacks associated with some of the following protocols; FTP, POP3, IMAP, TFTP, RPC, TELNET, UDP, DNS, AIM-ICQ, LDAP, HTTP, TCP, SNMP, WINS, IP, NNTP, MSNMSG, SSL, VNC, SMTP, and many more.
- Covers client side attacks, server side attacks, and many others.
- Allows user to create custom IPS using a IPS rule creation Wizard
- IPS rules also have the feature (that can be enabled on a per rule basis) that captures the "offending" packets specific to the IPS rule that are saved as a ".cap" file for viewing in supported packet sniffer programs such as Wireshark and Packetyzer.
3. Other System Protection Areas:
- These areas include; Execution Protection, Registry Protection, Application Protection (Buffer Overflow Protection), and protection for the Windows API itself.
- Each of the first three areas allows the user to create custom rules also
4. Trusted and Banned IP address(s) section (must be manually added)
5. Antispyware/Antivirus protection - Covered via Norman
6. Anti-Phishing protection
Blink operates primarily on two layers of the OSI model - The Network and the Application Layers
=============================================
MY OPINION
Blink comes in two editions; Blink Professional and Blink Personal
The main differences between the two:
- Blink Personal Only Supports Microsoft Windows Workstation Class Products.
- Blink Professional Supports Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, and 2008 Server Operating Systems
- Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 is no longer supported by Blink Professional 4.0
A. 1 Blink Professional License (1 year with support) currently sells for $29.00
http://shop.eeye.com/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayPage&Env=BASE&Locale=en_US&SiteID=eeyeinc&id=ProductDetailsPage&productID=51687900
NOTE:
- With the Professional Edition you are entitled to receive support via a customer support portal. You can submit new tickets via this portal, download updated software, and pdf user manuals for all of eEye's products. This portal is located at:
https://www.eeye.com/clients/login.html?access=0&target=&rnd=080703.201401.046011.155
B. Blink Personal Edition is free for one year (if you don't mind any alerts that Blink gathers from your system being sent back to eEye anonymously for research purposes. This is why it is free for one year!). You can avoid this by purchasing it. It comes either by one license or via a three pack license for $29.95 instead.
http://shop.eeye.com/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayPage&Env=BASE&Locale=en_US&SiteID=eeyeinc&id=ProductDetailsPage&productID=65128000
NOTE:
The Personal Edition currently is at Version 4.04, as of July 2008, and can be downloaded via the link below:
http://download.eeye.com/html/products/blink/personal/installer/blinkconsumersetup.exe
The MD5 checksum is: 4dc5900a20ca788603937e4acbfe0d9d
- Support is only provided though via their online forums located at: http://forums.eeye.com
**** MY PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION: If your really going to use Blink and be serious about it, I would pay for the Professional Edition. It has a few more features that the Personal Edition does not have (i.e. Password protection and the ability to run in different modes of operation). The password protection in the Professional Edition would come in handy for those that have children that are old enough and have the understanding of how to disable something on a computer. The Personal Edition does not have anything to stop anyone from simply disabling and shutting it down.****
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Summary:
A lot of folks do not realize that Blink was originally created to protect Windows based desktop and server computer systems in business and Enterprise environments from. The system administrator guide for Blink gives you an overview description of Blink as follows (quoted from the pdf manual):
"eEye Digital Security?s Blink can protect against intrusions, acts as an application and network
firewall, be an internal policy enforcer and vulnerability assessment agent. Instantly apply new
policies, provide both proactive and reactive protection against intruder, internal attack and
machine misuse."
"Blink provides:
? Defense against Zero-Day Attacks
Blink?s behavior-monitoring approach means personal computers are protected against
new assaults, such as zero day attacks, that take advantage of previously-unknown
vulnerabilities where no vendor patch is available. Using this technique, eEye?s software
was able to fend off such widespread exploits as those used by the Code Red and
LSASS Sasser worms
? Relief from Panic Patching
Blink uniquely protects assets from vulnerabilities, as opposed to only thwarting attacks.
If Blink is already guarding against a particular hacker exploit, installation of the new
patches can wait for the next regular maintenance cycle, saving labor and downtime
costs.
? Protection of Mobile Devices
Installing Blink on mobile devices defends them from attack when they're off the network."
Blink is more geared towards use by individuals that have System administrator experience and users that are more advanced computer users. The everyday home user will probably find themselves a bit overwhelmed by the product. I think this is why a lot of people that are use to using the home versions of products that come from Symantec and McAfee are not comfortable with using Blink on a day to day basis. They feel as though it is lacking, when in reality it is not. In my opinion Blink can not really be fully compared to or against some of the other security suites out there (i.e. McAfee, Symantec, Trend, etc). The main reason being, Blink was created for a different purpose than these security suites are. I will explain from my point of view.
Most of the large security suites out there are mostly focused on a few main areas:
1. Malware containment (hence they are concerned with signature numbers, i.e. we detect 100 out of 100 known malware samples)
2. Intrusion Detection (most have an IPS). Not all of them will cover server side attacks though.
3. Inbound Outbound Filtering Firewall
4. Identity Theft protection (Phishing protection, etc)
The biggest thing about these suites though is they all seem to focus on "Containment". They all want to focus on being able to locate the intrustion or malicious code and then contain it. They want to protect the computer from the user in a sense if you think about it.
Blink on the other hand is special and is in many ways the oposite. While it does have all of the same default base features that these other suites do, it attempts to do many things the other suites do not. These are as follows:
1. Protect the user's machine from the root cause of being compromised to begin with (i.e. a known or unknown vulnerability in the user's program that he or she is using like iTunes, Windows Media Player, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer, etc). The days of the attacker coming to US is more less over. It is now mostly the attacker waits for the user to come to them now by some form or means. It is through these attack vectors that malware is introduced into the user's computer and Blink is trying to stop it to begin with.
- Blink is not really about containment. It does have an AV/Spyware scanner in it for this purpose, but that is not its main focus. eEye realizes that signature based scanners are becoming less and less reliable everyday. Thus this is why they do not focus on how many pieces of malware can they detect and brag about it.
2. Vulnerability assessment -
- Blink contains the Retina vulnerability scanner within it. You would be amazed how
many things it will find that your machine is either missing (patch wise) or items that are configured INCORRECTLY that can lead to your machine being compromised in other ways. There are a few other security suites that are just now trying to use vulnerability scanners in their products, but they do not compare with eEye Digital Security's Retina capability wise.
3. 3rd Part Application protection -
- This sort of goes along with #1 above, but Blink also focuses on protecting your other applications from attack also, not just Microsoft Windows. eEye realizes that a lot of the 3rd party program creators seem more focused on pushing out a new product, but do not focus as much as they should on the security of their code before releasing it to the public. They attempt to protect you from the problems that this introduces to a Windows machine.
4. *** Code Auditing and QA processing *** This is one of the biggest thing that sets eEye's Blink apart from the rest of the competition. eEye probably takes more steps in auditing their own code and running it through a dedicated QA process more so than any other security software company currently out there. This is a big factor in protection. If a product that was designed to protect you has vulnerabilities in itself, it now becomes a vector for attack on your system too.
Hands down though Blink is better than all of the other security suites out there. On top of that, it also comes from a
company that specializes in studying Microsoft Windows, its vulnerabilities and armed with this knowledge they have created one of the best security suites to protect Windows from all of these factors.
There is one particular independent test that was done on Blink and a few of the other maijor security endpoint suites.
This was done by the Information Security Magazine folks. A compacted version of their tests has been composed and
placed on eEye Digital Security's website for your reading and reference. It can be found here:
http://www.eeye.com/html/assets/pdf/ISM.pdf
The full version can be found here:
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/magazineFeature/0,296894,sid14_gci1280028_idx1,00.html
NOTE: An older version of Blink was tested in this particular article. Blink has come a long way from then to what is is now.
Overall, I would recommend Blink to anyone that is somewhat computer savy. I would not recommend it to the average
everyday user though. Also bare in mind this product was geared, as I said before, for businesses and enterprise users where there are more restricted on what can be used and what can not. The needs are also more demanding. Because of this, Blink does not have all of the "Bells and Whistles" that people have become use to seeing in home security products. Unfortunately with all of these "Bells and Whistles" in a product, it quickly becomes "Bloatware" (as McAfee and Symantec have become imo). Blink is a ver light security suite size wise.
On a final note, if you intend to install Blink, I would HIGHLY recommend getting rid of any other security software you have installed. A lot of the programs out there will conflict with Blink and compete for resources causing you problems in the end more so than helping. The term and saying "Keep security as simple as possible" comes into play with this concept.
User Rating: 
4/10
Works great, until you try to uninstall.
Pros: Heuristic protection is novel, low maintenance, free for first year.
Cons: Uninstall is ridiculous. They want $25 to continue after the first year.
User Rating: 
1/10
Beware, don't blink.
Pros: Works fine if you are lucky.
Cons: Impossible to uninstall
You can't delete the keys from the registry because Blink has the important ones protected and you can't delete the file folder because everything there is also protected. Some people have resorted to completely reformatting their hard drive to get rid of it. This could end up being you. Is it worth the risk?
Most people are delighted with it but there's a common problem that it's obviously intrusive and support at Blink has no uninstall program to give you. It appears this is not a product of the USA.
User Rating: 9/10
A New Approach to Security to Face the New Era of Threats!
Pros: Uses less system resources than any other security suite.
Cons: Does not have the personal password protection feature that the Professional Edition does.
Now don't get me wrong, Blink does have the "basic" run of the mill features that other security suites do, i.e. protection from "Malware" (Antivirus, Antispyware, Adware, etc) a Stateful Inspection firewall (providing both inbound and outbound filtering), a System Firewall, Phishing protection, personal data protection, the ability to blacklist or whitelist IPs and a very strong HIPS utilizes both signature based methods and hueristics for the unknown.
The main thing that I must point out that separates Blink from the rest of the security suites and firewalls of choice out there is the fact that it utilizes "Protocol Analysis". Simply meaning it analyzes all of the protocols your system is allowing in and out of it for known and unknown exploits. Another reason this is much stronger is for this general example:
Take for example the HTTP protocol (Port 80, Web Traffic), the largest majority of the traffic leaving your machine is utilizing this protocol. Most firewalls out there, when you initially open your web browser will alert you asking you for permission to allow your browser access to the internet. You say yes and allow it. At this point most security applications no longer worry about the traffic since you allowed it, they go about their business. Blink on the other hand actually monitors the traffic, via its protocol analysis, continuing to check the traffic for known and anything suspicious (the unknown) exploits and our vulnerabilities. This is what makes Blink so superior. It does just this with every protocol that it is able to leaving or arriving to your machine. With this approach does come sometimes a few false positives here and there, but in a sense if you are attempting to protect a user from "zero-day" exploits and what not, you have to accept these with the whole package deal. I rather it be a false-positive then allowing it in and it not being a false-positive.
With this said, Blink is attempting to protect you from anything unknown and known. Blink also aims to protect its users from vulnerabilities in software. A lot of the system compromises you see today are due to a system being taken over by security holes in software. eEye Digital Security, the makers of Blink, have extensive knowledge in researching vulnerabilities in software and Window's Operating systems. The new Era of attacks that are underway day after day are by exploiting a user through a security hole that exists in a software application. Simply having your machine patched and a firewall installed is not enough. eEye recognizes this and has even included, in Blink, a simplified version of their Retina Vulnerability Scanner that scans the machine in which Blink is installed on for all of the currently known vulnerabilities in Windows and other software programs that eEye is aware of. Most users will be surprised after using this that they are not as protected as they think they are.
With all of this said, this is why I feel you can not compare Blink with other security suites out there. It is doing way much more than you are able to see. eEye created Blink with multiple layers, most of them transparent to the user and none of them overlap each other. This is why Blink runs smoother than other security suites. The majority of what you are able to see in Blink visually is the typical everyday scanning software and firewalls that everyone "by default" expects to see in a product. The creators of Blink acknowledged that these generic product features have to be included otherwise people will not buy it. What most people do not know is about all of the other layers that separate Blink as I have stated before. Finally anyone using Blink will NOT want to have any other security programs installed unless they need to. Blink covers all the bases therefor a lot of other programs will conflict with Blink. This is also why a lot of the users experience system slowdowns and so forth is because they have something else installed alongside of Blink. It is not needed.
Blink, after the initial installation becomes VERY quite in nature. For the average user expecting to be told about every little alert and access to this file and that...they will be disappointed if that is what they want. Blink was created in mind of security and usability. Quite frankly the more a user is bothered with pop up after pop up he or she will become frustrated and just click yes to everything, opening themselves to problems. eEye has also made note that because of this, if the user disabled the Application and System firewalls all together, the user will still be protected (by the transparent protocol analysis and other layers the eye does not see).
I personally recommend Blink for medium to advanced users with security knowledge. It does have some complex explanations in its logs and HIPS to begin with. The final note I will make is that Blink Personal Edition was derived from the Professional Edition. eEye has been known for its world class known business security products. So if any users that ask why does Blink not have a particular feature that every other product has "by default" take into consideration Blink's roots, it was an enterprise security application originally (and still is). Just now Blink is being introduced into the home user market where in time I see it proving itself far ahead of the competition.
eEye Digital Security, the makers of the vulnerability scanner "Retina" (http//eeye.com) have released their Beta version of their free Blink Personal Edition. Version 3.5 is now available for download at: http://forums.eeye.com/forums/t/329.aspx
There have been many great new changes and interface tweaks. Blink Personal Edition keeps getting better!
eEye Digital Security, the makers of the vulnerability scanner "Retina" (http//eeye.com) have released their Beta version of their free Blink Personal Edition. Version 3.5 is now available for download at: http://forums.eeye.com/forums/t/329.aspx
There have been many great new changes and interface tweaks. Blink keeps getting better!
User Rating: 
8/10
Great product
Pros: Great protection from the bad things on the internet
Cons: Hard learning curve
User Rating: 8/10
A great tool for those that are hands-on with security.
Pros: Many configuration options, excellent detection of malware
Cons: The default settings are set to ask permission for every internet port access.
User Rating: 9/10
by hackers to fight hackers
Pros: powerful protection and system auditing
Cons: slight performance loss, requires some user effort
User Rating: 9/10
Security of the future, here today
Pros: Very sophisticated architecture
Cons: Interface not for beginners, but workable
It's not perfect, but it's getting there, and it is the way to go. It has rendered all other security suites obsolete.
User Rating: 
3/10
Blick Software Turns Off While Working
Pros: Product is Free
Cons: Software doesn't warn and turns off
User Rating: 3/10
Good -- To Complex
Pros: Operated well in stealth mode
Cons: To complex to exclude web based programs
User Rating: 1/10
Outside of the States - forget it
Pros: umm dont know
Cons: umm dont know
Cnet should have posted this on their download page. Shame
