Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
Best free firewall for Windows?
Armando:
;D Well, I do have Irish blood... That's why I was asking...
I tried OA, it kept popping up runtime errors. The other apps didn't freeze up like with Comodo but everything went into slow-motion, including my download speeds. I have to assume that something on my system doesn't like HIPS or more likely, the other way round. Judging by the hit a PC takes with HIPS installed, anyone installing it should give some serious thought to whether it is _really_ worth it. For me getting rid of HIPS wasn't even a security decision, more like whether I wanted to keep using my PC or not. Am back with Comodo (sans HIPS, of course) Maybe my experience was a lot worse than some of you considering my P4 3GHz Prescott is kinda dated... and yet, kinda state-of-the-art, compared to other frying pans!
-nosh (February 05, 2008, 06:03 PM)
--- End quote ---
Software firewalls and HIPS are just a pain in the βǚŧ... I must say though that (fortunately for me, because of its high rating) OA doesn't slow down anything on my system (like I said : oasrv.exe is usually at 0%, sometimes it jumps to 5 max, 30-40 when I run uTorrent, for brief moments -- X1, firefox, etc. consume more cpu power in comparison). Maybe you have some conflicting antispyware or antivirus??? But I understand if one just moves on after some really annoying and enigmatic problems. Life is a bit too short.
4wd:
FWIW I gave PC Tools a whirl and have to say I was mightily disappointed.
first problem (for me) - it blocked the internal network for some reason (and I'm not even on a network!!!), wouldn't let me play CounterStrike (single player). Tried tweaking the rules to no avail (probably my lack of expertise didn't help here...)-Target (February 03, 2008, 06:07 PM)
--- End quote ---
Interesting, I can't recall having that problem but it's easily fixed. If you go to the History screen you'll see a list of whatever was blocked, (Source, Dest, Port, Protocol, etc - doubleclicking will give detailed info), right-click on it and select 'Add Rule: .....' and it will create a rule in the appropriate zone, (Internet/Trusted).
You can then edit it, (it always appears at the top before other rules), to fine tune, etc.
second problem - inability to connect to the net. It may be a good firewall, but I never found out 'cos it either blocked my connection, or dropped it after a very short time. I spent well over an hour trying to establish a reliable connection, and in the end simply disabled the firewall (problem solved!!). Maybe I'm a slow learner, but I can't for the life of understand why an app that is apparently as well considered as this one appears to be shouldn't work straight out of the box...
--- End quote ---
Strange, what can I say except it didn't happen here and it sounds more like a software conflict.
On top of that it was so intrusive (I'm still installing stuff after a rebuild) - every install required a response (some several).
--- End quote ---
Generally because the installer wants to connect to the net, accept connections, etc, (Microsoft Installer will). But at least you don't end up with 50+ uninstall/install/setup items in the Apps list like ZA, (mine has none). All the firewalls I've tried do this, (except purely rule-based), and personally I'd consider it a failing if they didn't, (open a requester when net access is happening during program install/uninstall).
This is one reason why the majority of programs I use are portable.
Now I know this is a 'good thing', but it's irritating in the extreme. Clicking on the 'remember this' option shortcuts some of this, but creates a useless rule. Uninstalling was an equally frustrating exercise (why would I want to create a rule to uninstall something???).
--- End quote ---
Because, again, the uninstaller is trying to connect to the net, accept connections, memory injection, etc.
And at least it shows you in the Apps list if a application is no longer available - about the only firewall I've seen that does.
Target:
Generally because the installer wants to connect to the net, accept connections, etc, (Microsoft Installer will). But at least you don't end up with 50+ uninstall/install/setup items in the Apps list like ZA, (mine has none). All the firewalls I've tried do this, (except purely rule-based), and personally I'd consider it a failing if they didn't, (open a requester when net access is happening during program install/uninstall).
This is one reason why the majority of programs I use are portable.
Now I know this is a 'good thing', but it's irritating in the extreme. Clicking on the 'remember this' option shortcuts some of this, but creates a useless rule. Uninstalling was an equally frustrating exercise (why would I want to create a rule to uninstall something???).
--- End quote ---
Because, again, the uninstaller is trying to connect to the net, accept connections, memory injection, etc.
--- End quote ---
fair enough, but this is exactly the reason why i don't install/uninstall software while I'm connected, so, apart from the memory injection part, in my case it's kind of redundant.
can't comment on the software conflict, though this is a brand new build so I haven't really got much installed at the moment (I had, I think, not much more than Avast and the firewall at the time...)
Likewise, my preference is for small no install type apps (I even try unpacking installers with UniExtract <http://legroom.net/software/uniextract> to get around this), though this isn't always possible/practical
Target
nosh:
Maybe you have some conflicting antispyware or antivirus???
-Armando (February 05, 2008, 06:28 PM)
--- End quote ---
Possible (NOD32), but unlikely. More likely just quite a few things running and HIPS wanting to play mommy to all of them. :)
Armando:
NOD32? I'm using NOD32 too, so I'd be surprised too...
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version