what to look for in a firewall

Its user base.

Appliances or Dedicated firewall servers are better than anything you install on a computer that is used by anyone.

I look for a couple things in firewall appliances:

1) Length of time in the market 2) HTTP Proxy service that can removed malicious items 3) HTTP Proxy service that can block content by IP, Name, Category 4) HTTP Proxy service that can detect attacks and block traffic from the source 5) SMTP Proxy (IN/OUT) that can detect and block files by name/type 6) SMTP Proxy (IN/OUT) that can detect and block malicious items 7) SMTP Proxy that can rewrite headers to hide internal LAN info ... Allows multiple HTTP rules based on user ID or LAN IP, to create different rules/filtering per user/lan segment. ... Allows complete real-time visibility to in/out traffic and rate ... Inexpensive renewal costs for AV/Spam services ... Ability to upgrade capacity without actually replacing hardware.

snort!-)

[snip]

Agreed; although a "personal firewall" has its merits; I think one may look at such a critter like an IDS/IPS; sure, it also filters network traffic, but imHo that's mostly a task for the perimeter firewalls, on the other hand, a local program may help getting alerts in case something isn't working "as expected" btw, in a quite large environment, having a program with central management and alerting will be of help but in general, a "personal firewall" has some value even when you have h/w appliances in place

Hello, Leythos!

You wrote on Thu, 1 Apr 2010 15:00:46 -0400:

L> Appliances or Dedicated firewall servers are better than anything you L> install on a computer that is used by anyone. L>

L> I look for a couple things in firewall appliances:

How about COMODO's firewall, have you had any experience with it. All the options you mention if my memory is correct, COMODO's firewall supports.

COMDO appears to be a software based Firewall that runs on a computer that you use - that violates my idea of a firewall to protect anything.

Hello, Leythos!

You wrote on Wed, 7 Apr 2010 20:54:24 -0400:

| In article , | snipped-for-privacy@shaw.ca says... >> How about COMODO's firewall, have you had any experience with it. All >> the options you mention if my memory is correct, COMODO's firewall >> supports. >>

| | COMDO appears to be a software based Firewall that runs on a computer | that you use - that violates my idea of a firewall to protect anything. | Ah..