Hellow peaple, I’m trying to download pfsense ce 2.7.2 and i can’t, is it mandatory to hab=ve a subscription for that??
Netgate have changed the way of downloading the software - read the text below ‘Latest Stable Version’
Now using Netgate installer package
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yes, but it was not helpful from there, the only option is add to card after selecting the installation media, thanks !!
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You can find the old installer files here: Index of /mirror/downloads/
See also the pinned comment in the following Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/PFSENSE/comments/1chzp1n/
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thank you so much, you are a life saver !!!
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bb77 beat me to it, but man that mirror is SLOW.
I don’t see this as a wonderful change (as pointed out in a couple posts on reddit), but only dropped into this thread to suggest a mirror. I’ve committed to moving on to a different product, for better or for worse. My opinion, I don’t like what is happening and where it is going, coupled with sins of the past…
I’m guessing they are propping things up hoping for Broadcom to buy them and mess it all up.
And yes I did buy three years of the other product, finally was able to force some money into the budget, had been a freeloader for too long on pfsense and for a short time on this other product.
Netgate being Netgate. They do a good thing by providing an installer that makes pfSense+ (and CE) easier to install, but at the same time they fail to put at least a “for advanced users” link to their download page on pfsense.org that points to the ISOs.
I imagine the respective meeting at Netgate went something like this:
Hey, we should include CE in the new Plus installer that we only offer through our store. That way we can engage with the community more effectively and hopefully get them to buy a Plus licence. For the few CE users who don’t want to register, we can always post the download link on Reddit if there’s an uproar, and for those who need to do an offline install, we’ll just send them the link after they’ve already registered and realised the installer won’t work for them. That way we also know the email address they gave us is valid.’ 
Well, who knows. I think they just want to make (more) money, which I’m generally fine with. However, if I were them, I would have left the download page on psense.org as it was, maybe placed an ad for pfSense + on it, linking to the store on netgate.com, where they could still have offered their unified installer. But they are not me.
I’m more than OK registering for the CE download, every Microsoft eval version requires my name and email (and a few other things), but the hoops going through the store kind of suck. And then the installer requires internet which might not be active until you get the firewall configured…
At least OPNsense runs in live mode where you could get some of this stuff hooked up for install download, but then again, they don’t have a net install process so not needed.
But I kind of understand why they are doing the net installer, smaller download initially, etc., I just don’t like how they did it. They could have integrated the store half into the net installer if you chose the + version.
Long story short, if you want to have offline installer for CE only, use the legacy one for pfSense CE 2.7.2.
I tried to download pfSense Plus installed with the idea to be able to select which version of pfSense I need, unfortunately this is not true, it is going to install pfSense Plus and internet connection is required.
So far I’m not able to install CE with this installed anymore.
@LTS_Tom an idea for further video is to show the people like me how to download most recent version of pfSense universal installer and perform an CE installation
Thanks
Tom,
Do you know if they are going to embed this net installer into the Netgate devices?
If so, then I can really understand why they did this.
They did this to have one installer that is able to install either version:
I hope they work this into the hardware like recent RasPi units have. Being able to do disaster recovery OS load directly from the web would be really nice. They are halfway there, a slim Linux on an embedded storage device would get them the rest of the way.
First of all, if you compare it to Microsoft, you’re setting the bar very low …and you’re also wrong. MS is providing direct download links to their ISOs: Download Windows 11
The fact that Windows 11 now de facto forces you to sign in with a Microsoft account during setup is of course another story, and these practices are one of the reasons I no longer use Windows.
Also, CE should not be treated as a trial version of pfSense+! CE stands for Community Edition, which is the open source edition of pfSense, and should be treated as a standalone product in its own right, regardless of the fact that pfSense+ is built on top of it.
If Netgate sees this as a liability because they think CE is cannibalising their business, they should be honest and drop CE, go completely closed source and offer Eval licences for Plus instead, but then they can’t adorn themselves with the terms “open source” and “community” anymore, and of course there will be no more contributions from the community either, because there won’t be a community anymore, just customers.
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If you download eval versions of Servers operating system, Full Sql you need to enter your details.
Yes, you can download Win10 / 11 without any details
Yeah, I wouldn’t know, but my point is, of course, that this doesn’t make what Netgate did any better. By the way, if companies do that for their commercial products or for evaluation licenses of their commercial products, I don’t mind, but for an open source or community edition, I don’t think it’s appropriate. But that’s just my opinion.
Somehow seems wrong to use an internet connected installer for the primary network security application? Yes nice if installer offers to install both CE and Plus but better if plus started as limited period trial until it can be licensed.
Btw there’s suggestion that installer doesn’t support pppoe yet - so that’s the UK isp world out for now…
If they go closed source, they have a lot of code to rewrite! They use far too many open projects to even make a closed source product right now. Should probably audit their other firewall product and see how much open source they rely on to build it.
But you are right, registering for a open source product does seem wrong when I think about it from that point of view. I’m not remembering any other open source thing that I run that does require a registration.
But again, for a security device, registering provides a way for them to contact you in the case of a big exploit, but probably should be optional. This is just one more twist in their recent spiraling path, so should be expected at this point. But wait… I bet it gets worse and they bring out some new way to make themselves look bad.
Look, another fork of monowall (through 3 different stages) DynFi Firewall : software development
Even the forks get forked.
OPNSense is HIGHLY dependent on the source code that Netgate contributes to FreeBSD. You can see that here:
https://github.com/search?q=org%3Aopnsense++Rubicon+Communications%2C+LLC+(Netgate)&type=code&p=1
DynFi did for OPNSense but it does not appear they have kept up with the security updates.
This is why I keep using Netgate/pfsense. Netgate’s team is on top of the security issues and they one of the top contributors to upstream FreeBSD which the downstream products, such as OPNSense & also DynFI, heavily rely on.
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