DreamerGear: Yoggie Pico Rectifies Previous Peccadillos in a Tight Little Package
DreamerGear Evaluation: Yoggie Pico Pro v. 5.1.0
I have purchased six, count ‘em, 6, Bluetooth headsets. Why? I bust them or lose them. But I keep buying them because while I have
one, it is so darned useful. Little,
functional, très cool – I gotta have it. I feel the same way about my Yoggie Pico Pro™.
I would have published this review the day
the product was released… I had received
one of the first ones that day and installed it before lunchtime. I even showed it off at a conference where I
was speaking, and showed how so much security could fit so neatly in my jacket pocket
when I packed up and headed to the airport. But by the time I got off the plane the little Yoggie was no where to be
found. Just 36 short hours of Yoggie
enjoyment. Ugh.
Name and Version of
Product Yoggie Pico Pro™ 5.1.0
Manufacturer and
Website Yoggie Security Systems http://www.yoggie.com/
Type of Product Endpoint Security – Security Appliance
Uses Protecting laptops and PCs
What We Loved Offloading security to a tiny USB appliance
What We Didn’t Frightfully easy to lose
Price $199.
Overall Rating 4.5 out of 5
Quick Replacement
So I got a new one. And love it. Functionally it is a
lot like my first Yoggie, the Gatekeeper Pro™ which I evaluated earlier this
year. It combines firewall, VPN, intrusion
detection, intrusion prevention, anti-virus, anti-spam, a web and FTP proxy,
and protections against other baddies like spyware, phishing and Trojan
horses. All this packed in a device
about the size of a standard thumb drive.
The Yoggie products are a step up from ZoneAlarm by Check
Point or Norton Internet Security from Symantec in security, but a set down in
convenience. ZoneAlarm and Norton are
software based solutions running on the computer all the time. You can’t misplace software – but it also
takes up resources on your computer and potentially drags down performance.
Fast & Secure
Network throughput with the Pico rivals the Gatekeeper with
exceptional throughput and no detectable slowdown in network response
times. In fact, with the Yoggie handling
email and web scanning, Internet response times actually increased.
I complained in my review of the Gatekeeper Pro that it should
be a PC card instead of a USB device. The Pico is a prodigious step toward the smaller and more “integrated”
form factor, but it is still a bit too fat. I can’t fit another memory stick in the USB port next to it. A future version really ought to be a PC card
that stays with the PC. I’d also like to see the price for consumers closer to
$100.
