Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

Best free firewall for Windows?

<< < (12/53) > >>

Stoic Joker:
btw, i'm behind a secure router, so much so that i've ditched 3rd-party firewalls for the Windows firewall, even though i came to know that it does only offers inbound protection.
-lanux128 (January 16, 2008, 06:42 PM)
--- End quote ---
Who cares about outbound "protection" anyway? When you get to the point where it kicks in, your PC has already been compromised... I see it as fixing the symptoms instead of curing the problem.

-f0dder (January 16, 2008, 06:52 PM)
--- End quote ---
:greenclp: Nailed It! :greenclp:

I do believe we have the same opinion on this :)

Software firewalls fall into a category I like to call "Baby-Sitter" software ... The user just sits there tra-la-lips'ing about the web expecting it to auto-magically deliver them from "evil". Which makes exactly half as much sense as expecting ones insurance company to prevent them from running into a tree ... while driving drunk.

Armando:
I wonder about the validity of the arguments behind the idea of the relative futility of outbound protection. I know what Riley & others think of it, but, somehow, I don't understand the logic behind the arguments (and should I automatically trust Microsoft security experts when they ask me to believe them??). Isn't the "real" question : "which is more secure : inbound filtering only, or both inbound + outbound filtering" ?

Are you implying that once your computer as been "infected" or breached, no Outbound filtering is going to be able to prevent leaks?? (Even with good code injection detection techniques?) 

I Personally tend to want to know if an application (even supposedly inoffensive) is sending info in the WWW. I like and want to be in control (as much as possible) of what I send and what I receive. Corporations try to get any info they can from the users -- whether they want it or not. Why should we allow that? What about personal sensitive data?

Also, what about others? There's the "me" point of view -- it's to late for "my" computer, etc, "my" security has already been compromised, etc. --, but what about others, those who might get infected by "your" virus which eventually sought a breach to propagate ? So i's basically okay if your computer is infected and infecting other computers because of a lack of outbound protection ?

Isn't saying :
Who cares about outbound "protection" anyway? When you get to the point where it kicks in, your PC has already been compromised... I see it as fixing the symptoms instead of curing the problem"
--- End quote ---
a bit like saying "if the thief is in your house it's already to late : just let him take all your stuff and run", or "if you get sick, it's already too late : go for a walk and infect everybody else".

What's a "symptom" seems to be a matter of perspective. One thing is always the symptom (or effect) of an another thing (action or cause). Isn't it?

I tend to find these arguments a bit more convincing (I know, they're partial! And so are Microsoft's).  But, please, teach me... I want to understand.

Darwin:
I have run a number of firewalls (still have a current licence for ZoneAlarm Pro) over the years and just recently uinstalled the latest of them - Webroot's Desktop Firewall. There is the overhead, which I object to, and then there is the intrusiveness. I surf the web behind a wireless router with a hardware firewall so don't feel that I am compromising on security (I run A/V and A/S and have XP Sp-2's firewall enabled). I should probably re-install a firewall and have it available to run when I am surfing the net in airports and other public places, but those times are so predictable that I will have lead time to install something when the need arises.

Am I mistaken in thinking that I am secure?

4wd:
I've run a few firewalls over the last couple of years.  I had ZA for a while, then ZA Pro (had 2 licenses for it until recently), but somewhere they lost the plot and it just started bogging down the system, corrupting it's own files, and all the extra crap they kept adding - damnit! I just want a firewall.

I've tried:
Tiny Personal Firewall - Last free version before it became Sygate, (IIRC).  A bit too 'Tiny'.

Ghostwall - Very fast but a pain to set up for every one of your apps.

Primedius Free - Very fast lightweight firewall that will run with other firewalls.  Use it with Windows Firewall for incoming protection and let Primedius handle the outgoing stuff - however the list of applications does get cluttered.

Sygate - Tried it for about 30 mins, didn't like it.

Comodo - Used it for quite a while, a very good firewall but it's interface and rule creation let it down.

And a few others I've long since forgotten, I've finally settled on:

Zyxel Prestige 660HW - The routers firewall is turned on plus NAT is also running, however I have a couple of ports left open for servers.

So for a software firewall I've settled on PCTools Firewall V3.  It doesn't slow down my PC at all, (not that I've noticed anyway, pings are still sub-40ms for gaming), and the ease and variety of rule creation for both network and apps is far ahead of Comodo.  The interface is also a lot better than Comodo.

And bliss, it allows you to export and import rule sets - set it up, export the rules, install on another PC, import the rules.

mouser:
Thanks for the summary of your experience 4wd -- since your opinions seem close to mine i think i'll give PcTools firewall a try soon.
Recently i moved from Comodo to Eset's new firewall, and been pretty happy, but not totally satisfied, so i'm always looking for another.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page