Any GOOD Firewalls Out There?

[Thanee]

Agamon, Thanee, Xyanthon, if I may ask, what do you utilize - besides a router - for protection, i.e. anti-virus, etc.?

None.

And no, I'm not kidding.

Well, ok, I use Firefox with script-denial and Thunderbird instead of IE and Outlook. That certainly counts as utilized protection.

My whole protection besides the router/firewall is user-side. I don't download 'stuff' from the internet (only downloads from trusted sites), I never ever click on e-mail attachments or follow links from e-mails, unless I know the sender and the content has been announced previously (or it's a safe media format, like an image), or the mail has enough written text to ensure, that it was not auto-generated.

When I call up a sensitive site (online banking and such) I always type in the URL myself, don't even have bookmarks to those.

So far, I've never ever had a virus on any of my systems.

The worst I got were cookies. Bad cookies!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Mercule]

I know about the freebies like Comodo and Jetico, but they take considerable tweaking and a considerable amount of technical knowledge just to configure.

I just noticed this comment. Having used both Norton and Zone Alarm, I'll just say that Norton cannot compete in any way with Zone Alarm. ZA is easier to set up, easier to understand, easier to maintain, better at controlling traffic, less obtrusive, and requires a transparent level of system resources.

Actually, for as bad as Norton is, I'm actually amazed that they are even still in the market. There is absolutely nothing positive about Norton. I don't dislike McAfee as much, but it was the first thing I uninstalled from the new desktop I just bought, as I know it was a resource hog on my parents' computer. I would never use the security products from either of these companies.

 

[borc killer]

None.

And no, I'm not kidding.

Well, ok, I use Firefox with script-denial and Thunderbird instead of IE and Outlook. That certainly counts as utilized protection.
...
So far, I've never ever had a virus on any of my systems.

I could not agree more.

I would not recommend ANY software firewall other than the standard Microsoft one in Vista or XPsp2. A NAT router and a simple simple software firewall is all you need for home. Every single computer that had a 3rd party software firewall on it that I have ever worked on was made nearly unusable by it. People have no idea how to use them and are sold them by fear mongers.

Just keep your system updated with automatic updates, use IE7 (or Firefox 2.x), a patched mail client (ether Outlook or Thunderbird not Outlook Express) with the Microsoft firewall and surf safely and you will have absolutely no issues. If you insist on getting something do NOT get consumer versions of Norton or McAffee and I would beg you to not use Zone Alarm ether… all 3 are some of the worst crap software I have ever seen. If you REALLY need that much security dual boot your system and put on some flavor of Linux to surf with.

Lastly… NO amount of software/hardware/security will prevent stupid people from doing stupid things. If you’re looking at p0rn and the page says “hay I can install something that will let you find more p0rn” don’t say Yes…

 

[krunchyfrogg]

Lastly… NO amount of software/hardware/security will prevent stupid people from doing stupid things. If you’re looking at p0rn and the page says “hay I can install something that will let you find more p0rn” don’t say Yes…

Oh crap.



j/k

 

[Rl'Halsinor]

If you insist on getting something do NOT get consumer versions of Norton or McAffee and I would beg you to not use Zone Alarm ether… all 3 are some of the worst crap software I have ever seen.

I couldn't agree more. They are so bloated that they really bog a system down and Norton and McAfee have poor track records though from what I just read McAfee might finally be improving; still they won't be getting any $ from me. I know people like ZA but when I finally had enough of its constant slow downs I jettisoned it. It was amazing how my PC gained speed.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Yes, that is what I was driving at. I shop online at Amazon, ZipZoomfly, NewEgg and a few others. That is certainly outbound information that I don't want hackers to get their hands on.

FWIW the main reason why people are concerned about firewalls that filter outbound traffic is to prevent your PC becoming a zombie, with a trojan/virus/whatever 'phoning home' from your PC without your knowledge.

Personally I rely upon my router and the Windows XP SP2 firewall, which does the job well enough (SP2 introduced some very important features, not least making sure that the firewall is up before the PC connects to the network while booting up!)

Cheers

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

It seems to me that programs like AdAware and other spyware detectors should be able to find most things on your computer that would send data back to botnets or other listeners. So, instead of having a firewall in the background to monitor all traffic, you could just get spyware removal tools and run them regularly to make sure that nothing is sending out data.

I prefer AdAware, myself. I had the other major one, whose name I can't remember (Spybuster? something like that), but it was updated so seldomly that I decided to switch. That's the downside to this route, if the anti-ad software isn't up to date, then it doesn't know the newest malware to look for. A firewall, OTOH, would be on the constant lookout for proccesses opening ports that they shouldn't.

In the past, I've used online port scanning programs (I don't have a URL handy, but you can google about) to check my firewall, and I've found the exact same results from them with a router only as I have with ZoneAlarm + router. I still have ZoneAlarm installed, but with everyone else saying it's a big drain I might just go back to using XP SP2 firewall instead...

 

[Agamon]

I appreciate your replies. Agamon, Thanee, Xyanthon, if I may ask, what do you utilize - besides a router - for protection, i.e. anti-virus, etc.?

For me, not quite nothing, like Thanee, but nothing intensive. I use AntiVir for anti-virus. SpyBot, AdAware and MS Destroyer for anti-spyware, but I don't run them often.

The router works fine as a firewall "as is". As noted above, it's not impervious, but if your a smart internet user, it's all that's really necessary. Unless it's wireless, then you need to turn on wireless protection, obviously.

 

[IronWolf]

It seems to me that programs like AdAware and other spyware detectors should be able to find most things on your computer that would send data back to botnets or other listeners. So, instead of having a firewall in the background to monitor all traffic, you could just get spyware removal tools and run them regularly to make sure that nothing is sending out data.

If the thing sending data already sent your bank account info, WoW password or anything else before you run the spyware checker (and if that spyware checker has definitions that can catch the piece of malware phoning home in question) then the damage has been done.

 

[Lewis526]

Kerio is unstable, eh? I have an older version (2.1.5) that's been nothing but rock solid and hassle free. I take it for granted like the sun coming up in the morning. What a shame the newer versions don't work so well.