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Best free firewall for Windows?
app103:
Personally I've stopped using software firewalls; I depend on my NAT'ing router to keep incoming traffic away, and Kaspersky to keep malware from running. Of course I can't detect "phone home" in regular software that way, but oh well.
-f0dder (November 07, 2006, 09:18 AM)
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I am kind of doing the same, with the addition of AVG, Spybot, the spyware detector built into my browser, and Windows Firewall...untill I can find an alternative that won't dump everyone from my chatroom. (which I need to discuss with other room hosts I know)
superboyac:
If you plan on using IRC, forget Norton, it will block you from IRC for no good reason whenever it pleases.
-app103 (November 07, 2006, 12:56 AM)
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And IIRC (grin) it was also Norton that would BSOD if anybody on IRC wrote some special command (from a list of commands that Norton was monitoring because they were used by zombie bots).
Personally I've stopped using software firewalls; I depend on my NAT'ing router to keep incoming traffic away, and Kaspersky to keep malware from running. Of course I can't detect "phone home" in regular software that way, but oh well.
-f0dder (November 07, 2006, 09:18 AM)
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I do exactly the same. Personally speaking, I have never used a software firewall that wasn't more of a nuisance for me than anything else. My computer habits are good enough where a good antivirus program and a few spyware programs is good enough for me. I don't know if my computer is vulnerable to attacks or anything, I hope not.
f0dder:
I do exactly the same. Personally speaking, I have never used a software firewall that wasn't more of a nuisance for me than anything else. My computer habits are good enough where a good antivirus program and a few spyware programs is good enough for me. I don't know if my computer is vulnerable to attacks or anything, I hope not.
-superboyac (November 07, 2006, 09:40 AM)
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Well, if you use Windows Firewall, that should hopefully protect you against worms etc. - which, with a decent NAT router setup, would only happen if somebody on your LAN got infected. Dunno if there's any remote exploits for the windows firewall, oh well :)
superboyac:
Well, if you use Windows Firewall, that should hopefully protect you against worms etc. - which, with a decent NAT router setup, would only happen if somebody on your LAN got infected. Dunno if there's any remote exploits for the windows firewall, oh well smiley
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Actually, I don't even use Windows Firewall. Am I crazy?
Edvard:
Before I converted my Lovely Wife to the ways of Ubuntu, she would sometimes call me at work and tell me that a "Remote User" had shut down the XP computer. So we installed and used ZoneAlarm for a while. No more remote shutdowns and it was pretty scary seeing it report thousands of probes and a handful of suspected bona fide break-in attempts.
After doing some more reading, I discovered that the thousands of probes were actually just internet "background noise". So, depending on how the rest of your system is set up, the sensitivity of your data, and how secure your ISP claims to be, you might not have a whole hell of a lot to worry about.
Why I don't use Windows Firewall? Read "A Cautionary Story of Vulnerability Research in the 21st Century, or A Super-DMCA Fairy Tale" at http://www.hackbusters.net. (Scroll down a few paragraphs, or better yet read the Whole Page, it's a real ticker...)
And if you have a spare box around, you can always set up your own hardware firewall...
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