Internet slowdown

I just set up Sunbelt firewall and my internet connection has gone down to a crawl, is that common and if so is there any other firewall that would work better?

Thank you JBA

Reply to
jon anderson
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Get rid of the software firewall and buy a NAT Router or a real firewall appliance.

Reply to
Leythos

You SHOULD be behind a properly configured NAT router at a minimum. If you want to run a software firewall as well, Comodo and OnlineArmor are considered to be very good free options. Make sure you backup your system before trying anything out. Some firewalls have a tendency to leave remnants behind after uninstalling.

Check out this site:

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Reply to
G

Bullshit.

Better deavtivate network services, so your computer doesn't need firewalling any more.

VB.

Reply to
Volker Birk

Among those who consider software firewalls to be beneficial (and they are many), those two are considered to be very good free options.

Why don't you just outline your recommendations for the one who asked the question, and let him make his own decision on what's best?

Reply to
G

My recommendation is to reduce complexity to make systems secure, not to advance complexity as you're requesting with "Personal Firewalls".

As the default configuration, the operating systems of the Windows family are some of the last OS, which are not secure by default in the aspect of offering network services.

When you're starting your Windows the very first time, it offers DCE-RPC to the Internet, for example.

Nearly all other OS suppliers learned from the mistakes they did years ago, and are delivering their OS with network services switched off as a default.

With the cheerless exception of Microsoft.

Instead of doing what's sensible, they're insisting in offering network services as a default, and filtering them away again using host based packet filtering called "firewalling".

But this does not close every attack vector to those network services. For example, abusing FTP helper code in the firewalling implementation can circumvent such filtering in an easy way. So many people are now much more insecure with such firewalling than they would be, when their Windows PCs would not offer network services after all.

The Conficker network worms are a good example for how this disfiguration of Windows can be abused easily.

With network services switched off a computer is in no danger against network worms any more. And that's the only way to achive this.

And "Personal Firewalls" are even increasing the problems. Instead of removing attack vectors, they're adding new attack vectors because of their complexity, which also opens new attack vectors you don't have if you don't install a "Personal Firewall".

So, really: what a user needs, is a hardened box, not a firewalled one.

Yours, VB.

Reply to
Volker Birk

Which only works if you don't need those services and only if the ones you do need are not exploitable - and we all know how well MS does with their secure systems.

The best method is to make the computer/network unreachable by unsolicited connections.

Reply to
Leythos

I understand your position. We've been through this discussion before. I just thought that for the new poster with a new question, you might want to post your links again so he can gather all the information and make the decision he believes is best.

Reply to
G

If the posts don't contain clear methods to lock down the services, clear instructions for what services are necessary for every function the end-user MIGHT be using, so that the end-user clearly knows what they should disable, then the link will mostly likely cause the end- users more problems with their system than it's worth.

A simple NAT Router acting as a barrier for inbound connections provides better overall protection when you, yourself, can't lockdown the end- users computer for them.

Reply to
Leythos

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