14 DAY TRIAL // Smoothwall Express, a free firewall that includes its own security-hardened GNU/Linux operating system and an easy-to-use web interface, is now at version 3.1 RC4.
The current version of Smoothwall Express has arrived after years of continuous effort and promises to be the best release as of yet.
“RC4 corrects a few problems found in the third release candidate, settles on i586 and x86_64 as the system architectures that will cause the fewest problems when upgrading from release 3.0, has a much re-worked QoS feature, and has Marco's URL Filter mod fully integrated. We expect RC4 to the the last release candidate before we release Smoothwall Express 3.1,” reads the official announcement.
A lot of packages have been updated in this version and this release is the perfect time to get your firewall up to date.
“The vast majority of the work was done 'under the hood'. Here are just a few of the software upgrades: Linux 3.4, glibc 2.18, gcc 4.7.2, perl 5.14.4, squid 3.3.5, httpd 2.2.24, iptables 1.4.14, and openswan 2.6.39. Some of these updates are ready to enable new features such as HTTPS proxying in squid.”
“In addition to these updates, numerous bugs present in v3.0 that caused hard-to-reproduce problems or minor errors in the user interface were squashed,” also said the developers.
Highlights of Smoothwall Express 3.1 RC4:
• The build system has been vastly improved; • Grub Legacy is now used to boot all drives; • SMP is now standard for 32- and 64-bit installations; • An option to make a bootable install flash drive has been added; • The kernel now provides /dev entries for all devices it knows about; • Marco's URL Filter mod from v3.0 has been fully integrated.
A complete list of changes and improvements are available in the official announcement. Download Smoothwall Express 3.1 RC4 right now from Softpedia.
Remember that this is a development version and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended for testing purposes only.