Fortify 1.4.6 review

Fortify provides full strength, 128-bit encryption facilities to the export editions of Netscape Navigator and Communicator

License: Freeware File size: 422K Developer: Eric Young

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Fortify provides full strength, 128-bit encryption facilities to the export editions of Netscape Navigator and Communicator. If you routinely use Netscape's export-grade web browsers, (i.e. the ones you can download from the Internet), then you need Fortify. It is easy to illustrate why you need Fortify. Take a look at this diagram. Follow the links on the navigation bar below to find out more about Fortify or to download a copy for yourself.

Fortify is free for all forms of non-commercial use, including individual, educational, research, or charitable use. Please refer to the Copyright for full details.

Commercial use, or commercial re-distribution, of Fortify is controlled under the terms of the software Copyright, and requires a formal licence. However, the terms are deliberately simple, and, more often than not, they are purely a formality.

Organisations should, in the first instance, register their interest in using Fortify, via the contact enquiry form .

When comparing Fortify to alternative strong encryption solutions, such as SSL relays, SSL proxies, or Java-based applet solutions, there are a number of advantages which has to be considered:

1. It is more secure. A Fortified browser performs strong encryption internally. When connecting to a full strength web server, you have a true, end-to-end, strongly encrypted channel. With SSL proxies, at least one segment of the channel remains weakly encrypted.
2. It is faster. When using a Fortified browser, the data in the communications channel is not re-encrypted as it travels between the browser and the web server. It also has fewer network "hops" to traverse. And, unlike some alternative solutions, no supplementary Java applets are involved. All these factors result in better network performance, and less load on your PC or workstation.
3. It is simpler. A Fortified browser requires no additional certificates for its correct operation. Indeed, no other browser reconfigurations are needed at all. It is easy to install.
4. It is intranet friendly. A Fortified browser can be readily installed on a LAN file server and shared to a group of users. No further installation effort is required on each individual workstation or PC. In medium or large scale networks, this can lead to substantial savings in administrative time and effort.

Here are some key features of "Fortify":
In the Netscape 2.x and 3.x browsers, Fortify provides full strength, 128-bit encryption facilities. These are used when connecting to an encrypting web server (with the SSL protocol). Without Fortify, the export-grade web browsers are limited to 40-bit encryption facilities, which are substantially weaker, and have been demonstrated to be "crackable".

In the Netscape 4.x browsers, Fortify provides these same 128-bit encryption features, plus the ability to generate 1024-bit RSA keys internally (these are typically used for client certificates), plus the ability to send and receive e-mail messages using strong 128-bit encryption (with the S/MIME protocol).

Further details are provided in the following sections of this document.