best software firewall?

Google: firewall reviews

I use Zone Alarm 5.5 as the later versions have become bloatware [ Windows joke here ], been using ZA since @guard disappeared; but I've heard good personal statements about Outpost and going to give that a try.

I like and use ZoneAlarm

I'm with you there.

Your choice, of course. I have ZA on all my machines and have put on many others too. No problems at all.

ZoneAlarm free edition works great.

Thanks for the reply. Well, my experience with ZA has been that it interferes with innocent Web pages and creates odd problems like breaks benign javascript. I work in the tech department of a large e-commerce site, and many of the calls we get from people with problems on our site are running ZA. When they shut it down, the site works fine... but we never get people running other software firewalls calling in with these problems.

On my laptop I dual boot to Linux and use Linux when not connected to my own networks. Normally I recommend using the built in Windows firewall but when connecting to public networks you may want something that will pop up more warnings. Zone Alarm is the best free one. Personally like I said I use Linux for public hotspots. It is inherently more secure and is definitely not targeted like Windows is.

That's a fantastic idea! (Free isn't nec' a requirement; if there's a package out there that's great, I'll put the money down for it. I've had issues with ZA in the past.) But I'm pretty Linux savvy, so I could certainly dual-boot with say Fedora Core. Thanks for the suggestion!

-Liam

Liam schrieb:

So why don=B4t you just disable all services you don=B4t need? Does not cost a dime, does not load your PC with new vulnerabilities... And no, something is not necessarily better than nothing.

I would not even try :-)

What would you expect them to do? And what=B4s wrong with the packet filter included in XP?

Regards Thomas

I would stay with Windows Firewall unless you have some special requirements. Windows Firewall has worked for me since 2001 (when XP was first released) and this has improved since SP2!.

When something is free from companies you don't know, you have to ask is there is anything called FREE LUNCH?! You have paid for Windows so make use of it properly.

hth

Liam wrote:

Well, I'm not so certain it's as good at truely stopping intrusions and detecting trojans as something else might be. I do know it's not as configureable as things like AVG's, and it doesn't show you as much of what's going on and in as much detail as others.

The wireless networkmanager in FC5 is pretty flakey. I'm using FC5 and had to configure the wireless manually. Wireless works better in KDE than gnome for some unknown reason.

I agree with you Ken Blake and Zone Alarm Professional guards my dual-boot 98SE/XP PRO. and has not failed me yet. I remember putting Windows Firewall through the test and it failed even without allowing any exceptions but Zone Alarm Professional has not failed me yet. A good site to test your firewall is grc.com through the Shields Up and scan all service ports which is over 1000. If you get a pass with a full stealth rating then your firewall is pretty well protected.

Perhaps these users have enabled such features as mobile code control that can block javascript, block scripts such as vbscript, block embedded objects like ActiveX and Java and block mime type integrated objects.

I would purchase a nice Unix box, like an HP Server and then install CheckPoint FW-1 on it if I needed a software based solution.

Running a non-dedicated solution means you are very likely to screw it up and negate any protection you might have had.

Well, while in this hotel with a laptop using both wireless and dial-up on a Windows XP pro machine, I use BlackIce and IPsec that's on the XP pro O/S. IPsec suplements BlackIce that can't stop outbound traffic if I need to stop outbound.

Yes, I too have configured the XP O/S and harden it to attack.

Virus Bulliten is one place you can check.

I use NOD32 myself. The IMON feature of NOD32 allows me to terminate the TCP connction, if it detects malware coming in the network traffic, along with other nice fratures.

Duane :)

You're going to carry the the HP box around, presumably with a couple of wireless cards in it, and use it for a firewall at hotspots?

:-)

Hey, I found out something about the XP FW I didn't like. My XP Pro workstation at work I do .NET development. In the middle of compiling and running this program that does .NET Remoting , the XP firewall made some exception rule for this program by itself to let this program communicate on the network. How it knew what to do was beyond me. I also didn't know the you can make network Domain Group Policy rules for XP.

Those policy rules were stopping the program from communicating, which I didn't have time to find out what rules needed to be made to allow the program to communicate. Those policy rules also didn't allow me to disable the XP FW in the normal manner of disabling it by going to the NIC's property page via the O/S to disable it.

However, I used regedit and sat a registry entry for the XP FW to disable it. I was told about this by Tech Support. Once I did that and re-booted the machine, the XP FW was down.

I don't understand why MS has made this so easy to do.

Duane :)

Outpost is a piece of software that is so badly designed, that it allows a restricted user to easily gain administrative rights.

This error is by design and has been there for years without Agnitum caring to fix it. Sorry, but that is not a company to be trusted in terms of security. A good look-and-feel does'nt make up for a bad engine.

I guess you dont use windows operating systems then? me