Sygate Personal Firewall challenges

Your 'workaround' is a ridiculous pain in the ass. There's something wrong with your setup/installation or your configuration. You might try removing it and reinstalling fresh, then give those apps approval when asked. Otherwise, if you can't get it to work, then I'd try another firewall. There are many...

I asked if anyone else was facing this sort of stuff. Is anyone?

Else, has anyone got a favorite free firewall that they can strongly recommend? I am willing to switch, except that failing its aforementioned quirk, SPF is the only firewall I found that works, works quietly, and behaves itself.

I have an AMD 2000+ with Win 2000 Pro, a custom MOBO, BellSouth DSL Ultra, and a Westell high speed modem. Perhaps my system causes problems that aren't necessarily other software's fault?

OTOH, I never have any malware on my system. So SPF and my other security tools must be doing *something* right.

Walterius Old and creaky in Fort Lauderdale

G'day Walterius, try

and for some recommendations and trial firewalls or you could creat your own using IPSEC . Other than that, check the magazines and Google for best freeware. Personally, I use Windows XP with it's built-in firewall plus the new Windows Defender for malware and AVG Free for antivirus.

Wayne McGlinn Brisbane, Oz

Thanks, Wayne. That's the sort of helpful answer I was looking for. Unfortunately, none of Microsoft's recommendations is free, but $39 (50% off) for F-Secure after a six-month trial is OK--gives me six months to decide.

I also downloaded the build-your-own-firewall stuff and will play with it to see how deeply into firewall design I am willing to go. As a retired software and systems person, the idea does intrigue me.

In all, most helpful. Thanks again. Cheers to the Ozzies.

***************************************************** G'day Walterius, try for some recommendations and trial firewalls or you could creat your own using IPSEC . Other than that, check the magazines and Google for best freeware. Personally, I use Windows XP with its built-in firewall plus the new Windows Defender for malware and AVG Free for antivirus.

Wayne McGlinn Brisbane, Oz

| > The workaround for the above is to set it to Allow All and then set it back | > to Normal and then retry the operations. Does anyone else have these | > hassles? | >

| > This is the last version of the free SPF; it has been discontinued. I can't | > find anything better, so I keep using it. Has anyone found a better free | > firewall? | | Your 'workaround' is a ridiculous pain in the ass. There's something | wrong with your setup/installation or your configuration. You might try | removing it and reinstalling fresh, then give those apps approval when | asked. Otherwise, if you can't get it to work, then I'd try another | firewall. There are many... | | | -- | Kerodo

My Mom has this Sygate 5.5 firewall on Win Me and Win XP and we leave it to Allow All so she can log into Hotmail. I would switch to ZA 6.5 (if it exists...had problems with 6.0), but I still worry about the ZA "tvdebug.log" file crashing the machine on shutdown and startups (Lord knows it is wreaking havoc over here on my 98SE machine every damn day.).

Cymbal Man Freq.

maybe a later SPF version ;-). I don't recognize your problems. SPF works here fine.

SPF v5.6 build 2710

or SPF beta v5.6 build 2808; runs on WIN98SE without problems

I doubt that, having such security design flaws.

Yes. And nobody needs such a packet filter for Windows 9x at all.

Yours, VB.