Untangle

Untangle, Inc.

Type	Private
Industry	Security software, security appliances, Internet security, network security
Founded	2003
Headquarters	Sunnyvale, CA
Key people	CEO: Bob Walters Founder: John Irwin Founder: Dirk Morris
Products	Web content filtering, anti-spam, antivirus, anti-phishing, anti-spyware, intrusion prevention, Application Control, firewall, OpenVPN, bandwidth management, web cache
Website	untangle.com

Untangle is a privately held company based in Sunnyvale, California, which produces and supports the software and hardware versions of the Untangle firewall UTM networking application. Untangle is used by over 30,000 organizations worldwide.

History

Untangle was founded in 2003 as Metavize, Inc. by John Irwin and Dirk Morris. In 2006, Metavize raised a $10.5M series-A venture funding round from CMEA Ventures and Rustic Canyon Partners, named Bob Walters as CEO, and renamed to Untangle, Inc. In 2007, Untangle released the Untangle Gateway Platform as open source under the GPLv2 license.

In October 2009, Untangle released Untangle 7.0 which included improvements to its reporting capabilities. In December 2009, Untangle released Untangle 7.1 which included improvements to its web filtering and policy management applications. In March 2010, Untangle released Untangle 7.2 which included its Captive Portal application.

Untangle released a free bookmark utility called SaveFace in May 2010, in response to continued loosening of default privacy settings in Facebook user accounts. In June 2010 Untangle released Untangle 7.3, enabling the company's software to be used by OEM hardware manufacturers to produce their own branded multi-function firewalls and UTM appliances. In August 2010 Untangle released Untangle 7.4, wherein it simplified its packages to Lite, Standard, and Premium.

In November 2010 Untangle released Untangle 8.0, which included Bandwidth Control. In February 2011 Untangle released Untangle 8.1, which included Web Cache. Untangle 9.0 was released later in 2011, and included IPsec VPN support.

In February 2012 Untangle released Untangle 9.2, which included Application Control. Application Control allows users to block, flag, or tarpit applications and protocols. For a greater degree of control, administrators can create custom rules in the proprietary Integrated Rules Engine (IRE), which target more complex traffic patterns.

The IRE allows Application Control to work in concert with other aspects of the multi-function firewall suite to enable rule-based blocking of the most challenging traffic types. In fact, this integrated approach is the only known way to control protocol-agile applications like the Ultrasurf proxy. Untangle users can think about the IRE as a voting expert system that accepts inputs from all Untangle filters and then meters out blended control responses based on threat type and policy.

In March, 2012, Untangle released a new appliance line, answering the request of customers for an easier way to deploy Untangle on certified hardware.

In April, 2012, Untangle changed the content of the Standard Package to include both IPsec VPN and Application Control.

In August, 2012, Untangle released Untangle 9.3, including full tunnel OpenVPN.

In January, 2013, Untangle released Untangle 9.4, including an all-new Captive Portal to work with its Integrated Rules Engine (IRE), allowing for varied use cases like mobile device management for bring your own device (BYOD) environments, integration with payment providers to support paid access for wi-fi hotspots, and separate policies for wi-fi and wired users. Other changes included an improved Session Viewer and new Host Table view.

Awards and recognition

In August 2008, Untangle was named a winner in InfoWorld’s Best of Open Source Software awards.

Products

Untangle provides software in two different packages, Standard and Premium. Premium offers network performance management and more robust content filtering. Both are sold as subscriptions.

Untangle applications include anti-spam, content filtering, antivirus, anti-phishing, anti-spyware, intrusion prevention, firewall, OpenVPN, router, and web cache software.

Untangle's free applications are bundled in the Lite package, released under version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GPL), many components with the GNU Classpath exception. Certain third-party components distributed with the Untangle Software are licensed under other free license terms. Standard and Premium packages are under a proprietary EULA.

Appliances

Untangle introduced its uSeries appliances in March of 2012 and mSeries in October of 2012. All appliances ship complete with software and are available with an extended warranty and cold spare.

Name	Processor	RAM	Hard Drive	Ethernet Ports	Dimensions
u10	Intel Atom single-core processor	1 GB	160 GB, 7200 rpm	Four gigabit Ethernet ports	7.1”(W) × 5.9”(D) × 1.65”(H)
u50	Intel Atom dual-core processor	2 GB	160 GB, 7200 rpm	Four gigabit Ethernet ports	7.1”(W) x 5.9”(D) x 1.65”(H)
u150	Intel Pentium dual-core processor	4 GB	500 GB, 7200 rpm	Six gigabit Ethernet ports	7.1”(W) × 5.9”(D) × 1.65”(H)
u500	Intel Xeon quad-core processor	4 GB	500 GB, 7200 rpm	Eight gigabit Ethernet ports	17.20”(W) × 18.00”(D) × 1.73” (H)
m1500	Dual Intel Xeon quad-core processors	16 GB	1 TB, 7200 rpm	Eight gigabit Ethernet ports	17”(W) × 22.8”(D) × 3.5”(H)
m3000	Dual Intel Xeon six core processors	16 GB	1 TB, 7200 rpm	Eight gigabit Ethernet ports	17”(W) × 22.8”(D) × 3.5”(H)

External links

• Official website