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.