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The Great Firewall Hunt ... frustrating ...

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Carol Haynes:
OK - since Outpost 3 is out of favour what are people using ... (and is still available) ?

I refuse to use Norton, McAfee or Trend Suites on principle.

ZoneAlarm seems not to work brilliantly on my system (it keeps jumping to 100% CPU and staying there) - it may just be I need to install my system from scratch and clear out some of the rubbish.

I want something that


* Works well
* Isn't a resource hog
* Is regularly updated
* Is configurable
* Compatible with NOD32 AV
I'm completely stumped. Anyone got any realistic suggestions for a simple firewall that works ??

I was contemplating dumping NOD32 (reluctantly) and trying F-Secure Internet Security 2006 which gets good reviews everywhere I look - has the advantage that it is updated daily and F-Secure have a great reputation that includes free phone support. I was a bit put off by one review that said the built in anti-spyware component insists on uninstalling all other anti-spyware software during installation (including Spybot and AdAware) which is just plain daft.

Anyone tried the F-Secure product - is it worth giving up all other products to give it a try?

mouser:
outpost 3 might be worth a try if you are willing to take a chance; it certainly works for many and it's a nice program if its stable on your pc.

Carol Haynes:
Someone said:

AS OF NOVEMBER 2005 WE ARE RECOMMENDING THAT NO ONE PURCHASE AGNITUM OUTPOST FIREWALL.
AGNITUM OUTPOST IS NOW AT VERSION 3, AND WE HAVE FOUND IT TO BE BUGGY, AND NOT READY FOR PUBLIC USE.

--- End quote ---

Second thoughts?

mouser:
hehehe.. well
im feeling a little guilty.. as usual my frustration sometimes boils over and i get carried away..
usually jibz can talk me down but when he is not around..

i wouldn't say im retracting that statement - just that the basic featureset of outpost is great, and the interface is great.
it does seem to be to be a bit unstable/buggy.  but many people are clearly happy with it, so it might still be worth a try if you are evaluating firewalls.

i will stop cheerleading for it though, until they get it stable.

mrainey:
I've been using ZoneAlarm Free for several years, and Avast Free for one.  I have few complaints with either program, all things considered.  Avast is very configurable and has daily updates.  From what I can tell, I've been virus-free.  Occasionally I run the Trend Micro online check to get a second opinion.

My wife and I both use XP SP2, and I set the security up identically on both systems.  A recent ZoneAlarm update to V6.xx cause occasional blue screens on both systems.  The most-recent update, from a couple weeks ago, seems to have corrected the problem.

I use CounterSpy (a REAL memory hog) and TrojanHunter as well.  The combination of these four security programs appears to be conflict-free on our two systems.  CPU and RAM usage don't appear to be a significant problem.  My wife has an "aging" Athlon 850 with 768 MB RAM, and it's surprisingly zippy running multiple applications in XP.

You want a memory gobbler - sometimes an hour of heavy surfing with Firefox will get me into three-digit megabyte readings in Task Manager.

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