RE: Barracuda Networks is at it again: Any Suggestions as to an Alternative?

[Ray Corbin <rcorbin () traffiq com>]

I also use postini and it works really well for my current needs.

<rant>I had experience with Barracuda as outbound anti-spam filters for a very large hosting provider and I won't use 
Barracuda again. Some of their methods for blocking spam are a tad extreme. At one point they decided to block both 
yahoo.com and google.com in their domain filters because neither company responded timely to their complaint emails and 
wanted their attention...not to mention their buggy 'spam engine' that died many times causing mail to error with 
'failure to connect to 127.0.0.1'... I especially loved their tier 1's response of how the issue is on the recipients 
end because they couldn't telnet to mail.domain.com from their workstation...I had to first explain how mail.domain.com 
wasn’t the MX record for domain.com (it ironically was a postini MX record) and that it was obvious when thousands of 
messages sit in the inbound queue saying 'failure to connect to 127.0.0.1' meant their engine died and their 'watchdog' 
process failed to restart it. To me their Tier 1 unable to do the basics was pretty unacceptable. 
</rant>

-r

-----Original Message-----
From: proth () cnsny net [mailto:proth () cnsny net] 
Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2011 11:56 AM
To: Andrew Kirch; John Palmer (NANOG Acct); nanog () nanog org
Subject: Re: Barracuda Networks is at it again: Any Suggestions as to an Alternative?

Andrew,
We use and offer Postini - a front end service.  Postini is a anti virus and spam filter, and can spool mail if your 
circuits are  down.  Postini is a Google company and works like a charm.  If you need more information please contact 
me offline proth () cnsny net

Paul

Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone

----- Reply message -----
From: "Andrew Kirch" <trelane () trelane net>
Date: Sat, Apr 9, 2011 10:39 am
Subject: Barracuda Networks is at it again: Any Suggestions as to       an      Alternative?
To: "John Palmer (NANOG Acct)" <nanog2 () adns net>, <nanog () nanog org>

John,

My suggestion isn't _QUITE_ an appliance, but it works very well and
I've been exceptionally happy with it.  It's a distribution of linux
controlled via a web interface that does far more than just mail
filtering (at which it is both flexible and adept).  Take a look at
http://www.clearfoundation.com/Software/overview.html.  The hardware
requirements shouldn't be too insane, and the rules
updates/subscriptions for the various services are all month to month,
and not a bucket of insane.

Andrew


On 4/8/2011 11:51 PM, John Palmer (NANOG Acct) wrote:
> OK, its been a year since my Barracuda subscription expired. The unit
> still stops some spam. I figured that I would go and see what they
> would do if I tried to renew my subscription EXACTLY one year after it
> expired. Would their renewal website say "Oh, you are at your
> anniversary date", and renew me for a year?
>
> No such luck: They want me to PAY FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR for which I did
> NOT receive service and then for the current (upcoming year). Sorry -
> I don't allow myself to be ripped off like that. Sorry Barracuda - you
> get no money from me and I'll tell everyone I know about this policy
> of yours.
>
> I posted an article about this unscrupulous practice on my blog last
> year at http://www.john-palmer.net/wordpress/?p=46
>
> My question is - does anyone have any suggestions for another e-mail
> appliance like the Barracuda Spam Firewall that doesn't try to charge
> their customers for time not used. I should be able to shut off the
> unit for a year or whatever and simply renew from the point that I
> re-activate the unit instead of having to pay for back-years that I
> didn't use.
>
> Thanks