Any GOOD Firewalls Out There?

[Rl'Halsinor]

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.

Exactly. Your version is pre-Sunbelt Software appropriation of Kerio. I have gone through 3 versions and they have caused BSoDs each and every one. Now they have version 744 and you should see all the various crashes they had to fix from several different angles.

I am keeping my fingers crossed.

IronWolf: QFT

 

[xmanii]

Sunbelt caused my desktop BSoD's all the time, but on my laptop, it works great. Once I uninstalled the firewall from Sunbelt from my desktop, no more BSoD's.

 

[Aus_Snow]

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...

I wouldn't recommend it, personally. Whichever firewall app a person prefers, at least it will generally (as in the case of ZA) secure specific applications/processes - or block them - which is something a router generally won't do.

Zonealarm's not perfect, but it works, more or less.

 

[whoseon3rd]

I wouldn't recommend it, personally. Whichever firewall app a person prefers, at least it will generally (as in the case of ZA) secure specific applications/processes - or block them - which is something a router generally won't do.

Zonealarm's not perfect, but it works, more or less.

Which would you recommend?

 

[Nareau]

I'm a big fan of the Linksys WRT54G (although technically it's Lawful Neutral, not "good").

I found one of the earlier revisions on eBay, and loaded DD-WRT on it. It works beautifully, and can do more than most $500 routers can.

Nareau

 

[DethStryke]

All the stuff about the hardware routers with firewalls being better than software firewalls - I second (or third or fourth or whatever number I'm on now... ).

For those who want some bump in performance, a solid remote access tunnel and configurability out of the box may want to look at a Sonic Wall brand router. Especially if you do business out of your house. That would be the very high end though... just wanted to mention something on the business class level that still has reasonible pricing.

That may be a bit more complex than most home users need though. I, myself, use this D-Link. It's got gigabit ports, good wireless (I would not use wireless for gaming anymore), a very solid firewall, highly configurable and made to work especially well with games that need low latency (any shooter a'la Counterstrike, WoW, etc.) The hype I read turned out to be real and I was able to find it for around 140.