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