////EDIT: I just found this post that I should have posted a replied to with my rant.////
Up until today I have been a very happy HomePro user. The $50/yr cost is reasonable. Untangle allows me to precisely control my network, has an intuitive UI, as well as rich dashboarding and reporting features.
Today (2020.11.19) I received an email from Untangle titled “Untangle Home Protect Plus Expands NG Firewall Features to Home Users”, and anxiously dug into the details on the “Untangle At Home” page that compares “Home Protect Basic” and “Home Protect Plus. What I found made me very unhappy.
I assume that when my current annual Home license expires I will be put on the “Home Protect Basic” plan. If this is true, then I will lose access to the following applications currently included in my Home license:
- Virus Blocker (full),
- WAN Balancer,
- WAN Failover,
- IPSec VPN,
- Web Cache, and
- Captive Portal.
My biggest disappointment is losing the full version of Virus Blocker. Running this covered my mobile devices and supplemented the commercial antivirus software running on just my high risk endpoints (Windows PCs). If you know a good side-by-side comparison of Virus Blocker vs. Virus Blocker Lite features please let me know, as my quick search of this forum and the wiki did not find one.
My next disappointment is losing WAN Failover. I use it only for detection and notification of WAN outages on my one internet provider. I hope Untangle considers adding this app back into “Home Protect Basic”, or creating a WAN Failover Lite application that just provides WAN failover detection.
I was looking forward to using WAN Balancer along with WAN Failover to manage the transition from my cable provider to a 5G home solution, so I guess I need to find another way to do that.
When Threat Prevention launched with v15.0 back in February I assumed included in the Home edition. Today my App dashboard now says “No License Found”. I guess I was wrong there.
No heartburn about IPSec VPN from me, as OpenVPN allows me to access my home network while on the road is just fine. Also no need for me to use for Web Cache and Captive Portal.
Without WAN Failover and the full version of Virus Blocker, I am now questioning if $50/year remains a good value. Paying another $100/year to get these features back is absolutely not worth it for me.
Letting my Untangle license expire is not an option. The functionality provided by SSL Inspector, Policy Manager, and the full version of Web Filter are key to how I oversee the internet use of my three young children. Also Bandwidth Control is key to ensuring the my network traffic for work and school is given very high priority.
What is equally disappointing is the way Untangle pitched this change in the email. The first few sentences states they are “expanding … at Home options” to help address the customer’s needs to “balance working from home, the expanded network needs of their children, and the overall increased need to optimize limited bandwidth”. Asking your customers to pay more to keep existing features is not helping. I feel Untangle is not supporting its Home customers in the midst of a global pandemic.
I really hope my understanding of this is wrong. If not, Untangle has lost my respect.
I will be building out pfSense (free) in a VM, and then start up the learning curve so I can make a decision on transitioning before my current Untangle Home license expires.