Lightweight Firewall?

But well, checking for outgoing traffic is pretty useless except when this workstation is NATing for some client - which would indeed need a routing firewall, which has to do that anyway.

There is no such program as that.

I suggest that if you have a DSL or Broadband connection that you go get yourself a FW router like a Netgear that's ICSA certified that's under $100 that you can set inbound or outbound FW rules to stop traffic if need be, which you you can use something like Wallwatcher (free) to watch inbound or outbound connections to possible dubious IP(s).

You can then use the tools in the link to track it down if need be.

Long

Duane :)

NetVeda SafetyNet. (free for home user and fairly light on resources).

The lightest ones are usually rule based, for example Kerio 2.1.5, Jetico, Filseclab, SensiveGuard (all free). A few of the more common ones are fairly light, for example Sygate uses about 8mb ram when idle. I prefer just a router myself, but there are tons to choose from if that's what you want.

Here's a list of free ones you might check out:

I've been satisfied with ZoneAlarm Free.

I just checked the installer's size is 6.5 MB. What a monster!

He wants a firewall, not a remote vulnerability.

They're all employing application control, a big resource waste. Not talking about known vulnerabilities, general quality of implementation...

And a Windows service that opens windows, creating a wonderful Privilege Escalation that wasn't there in before. Ouch!

Please justify this comment.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

SIZE matters :-/ Wolfgang

DoS through UDP and ICMP flooding, beside that it's of pretty poor quality and a resource monster (most due to its useless application control bugs^Wfeatures).

Not to mention that it's phoning home...

FWIW, I've been using Sygate PFW [free] for the last eight months with no problems. Simple and does what you're looking for. Unfortunately, it's no longer supported.

Might still be available at:

Sygate Personal Firewall (free) v5.5 can be downloaded here:

The Windows-Firewall / ICF.

Yours, VB.

Sorry. The Sygate Pro firewall is now integrated with the Norton and Symantec security suites, and is not available as a standalone product.

Sygate Personal Firewall v5.6 built 2808 (free)is available at:

Yeah, "oldversion" should express the problem very well. Wanna gamble around with known vulnerabilities in old versions?

Anyway, simple stop thinking about deploying this crappy piece of software at all.

When ever will people notice, that "I've no problems!!1!!11" and "I am secure against those threats" are two completely different things.

And when will they realize, that most of them have "no problems", because they're already member of a bot net for months and just don't realize.

"TomJ", when will you realize that?

Yours, VB.

Maybe they won't realize it because it has never happened. Maybe they also use things such as SpyBot S&D and the like.

For general home use there is nothing that will provide absolute protection. The general home user will not pay thousands of dollars for corporate level firewalls and hire Chloe from 24 full time to watch their desktop PC for them.

So why worry? As long as *you* are protecting yourself, what the clueless masses do is of none of your business. Ridiculing them because they have the nerve to be on the net without having bought and installed a Watchguard X Peak firewall is silly.

If nothing happened, then it can't be due to this security simulation.

Eh... what do you want to say?

Right: There's no need for any security software at all.

The spam in my Inbox clearly tells that you're wrong.

It's ridiculous if they don't install any patches, browse the web with IE and mail around with Outlook Express, don't disable unnecessary services and click on everything "because my software firewall is superior !!!11".

Snake oil that can be circumvented and defeated just like application control and all the other junk in personal FW solutions.

And if they had a $1,000 corporate FW, it's not the FW's job any Internet network FW's job that's a FW to be protecting individual machines.

And why are you going off the deep end about it?

That is not going to help them either.

What will protect the user is to use common sense, secure or harden O/S to attack, practice safehex and not depend upon snake oil solutions like a crutch thinking everything is okey dokey.

Duane :)