Nerding out since 1998

Fresh Software was founded July 29, 1998 by Andrew Niese of central Wisconsin. Then 15, his ambition was to take his programming talent and creativity and eventually turn them into a respectable business.

Its first products were freeware utilities to combat the trojan horse threat that was just beginning to emerge at that time. Fresh Software received almost overnight worldwide recognition for its AntiGen program in August of that year. AntiGen was the first automatic “Back Orifice” trojan cleaning program ever.

In late March 1999, Fresh Software released its first commercial product, Sentry Professional, which was met with enthusiasm for being a unique product to secure a computer workstation when not in use. Fresh Software's next product was based on an earlier freeware program called X-NetStat, created before Fresh Software's conception. Version 3.0 of X-NetStat was rewritten and sold for $5, where it was received by a broad audience.

When Drew entered UW Eau Claire, Fresh Software became very much part time as he adjusted to college life, and no new programs were released for a couple of years until X-NetStat Professional 5.0 was released in May 2004. The early success of that version allowed him to live off of Fresh Software for the summer and gave him time to build up the business into a more stable, agile form.

After graduating from UWEC in 2007, Drew took a software engineering position at Parco Windows in Eau Claire and continued to work on Fresh Software.

NorthVine, a group texting app, was started as a side project in November 2013. In August 2014 Andrew Grinder joined the project. Although functioning and mostly completed, active development was put on hold in 2016 to focus on Fixity.

Milestones

1. July 1998Fresh Software is founded.
2. August 1998AntiGen, the first automatic Back Orifice trojan cleaner, brings almost overnight worldwide recognition.
3. March 1999Sentry Professional, the first commercial product, secures workstations when not in use.
4. May 2004X-NetStat Professional 5.0 is released.
5. November 2013NorthVine, a group texting app, starts as a side project.
6. June 2016Fixity is conceptualized with a prototype native Android app.
7. 2017Fixity.io launches as a web app.
8. April 2018Fixity enters its beta phase.
9. July 2018Fixity wins the regional HATCH competition in Eau Claire for best new idea.
10. November 2018Fixity wins the Eau Claire Economic Development Corporation's Idea Challenge, beating 50 other competitors.
11. April 2019The Fixity hybrid app (Xamarin) is completed and rolled out to the Microsoft Store, App Store and Google Play.
12. July 2021X-NetStat 6 is released.
13. November 2025The Engulfy website goes live.
14. April 2026The Engulfy mobile apps go live.
15. October 2026The NealReport.com and RationalPanic.com are launched.

To be continued…