which firewall?

I don't know what firewall to use, I want one that is not too complex so other people in my house can use it, and one that is not "in your face" all the time. What is there to choose from?

 

ZoneLabs 'ZoneAlarm' is free, I used to use all the time. Easy to set up and very good.

I upgraded it to the Pro version.

Here's the link
ZoneLabs

 

black ice is the one i use to use really good

 

It it advisable to still use Norton anti virus software with this firewall?

 

yes anti virus and firewall re two different things. if you download a file with a virus in it your firewall will let it through happily, it cant tell the difference between files with viruses and files without. but it may stop your pc downloading the file in the first place, if you didnt tell it to.

 

can zonealarm pro be had for "free"?

 

I'm sure it can, but like all my software its been bought and registered.

Zone Alarm Pro will monitor incoming and Outgoing mail for Viruses as I'm sure the free version does.
You can set up which extension of files you want it to watch as well i.e. Word Documents are .doc, Excel are .xls, Images are .jpg .bmp .gif etc and so on.

Mailwasher lets you bounce mail or report spam before you download it to your software (Outlook) etc. Absolutely superb!

I use Zone Alarm Pro ZoneLabs
AVG Pro 7 Anti Virus Grisoft AVG
Firetrust Mail Washer Pro & Benign Mail Washer Pro & Benign

Not a lot getting through !

Once you get your Firewall whoever may do it, then you can test it with 'Sheilds Up!'.
This will test your connection and tell you which ports are open to potential hackers etc.
Shields Up

Just tested mine as we have my son's machine going through mine and this is the result.

Attempting connection to your computer. . .
Shields UP! is now attempting to contact the Hidden Internet Server within your PC. It is likely that no one has told you that your own personal computer may now be functioning as an Internet Server with neither your knowledge nor your permission. And that it may be serving up all or many of your personal files for reading, writing, modification and even deletion by anyone, anywhere, on the Internet!

Your Internet port 139 does not appear to exist!
One or more ports on this system are operating in FULL STEALTH MODE! Standard Internet behavior requires port connection attempts to be answered with a success or refusal response. Therefore, only an attempt to connect to a nonexistent computer results in no response of either kind. But YOUR computer has DELIBERATELY CHOSEN NOT TO RESPOND (that's very cool!) which represents advanced computer and port stealthing capabilities. A machine configured in this fashion is well hardened to Internet NetBIOS attack and intrusion.


Unable to connect with NetBIOS to your computer.
All attempts to get any information from your computer have FAILED. (This is very uncommon for a Windows networking-based PC.) Relative to vulnerabilities from Windows networking, this computer appears to be VERY SECURE since it is NOT exposing ANY of its internal NetBIOS networking protocol over the Internet.




Edited by: BagPuss

 

I used to have Zone Alarm Pro+McAfee AV too, but started having a few problems with them so went back to Norton again and aquired Internet Security 2004 and it`s works fine for me, pop-up filter, and built-in child filter so I can stop any internet nasties appearing on my little girls XP account(works great too) Tested it with Shields up! and nothing is getting through either

 

I used to use Norton Internet Security but have moved to McAfee Personal Firewall and Spamkiller (only installed them today so still setting them up so they don't block things I want but I'm also behind a hardware firewall with NAT. So I should be quite safe for now.

 

I used to use ZA but switched to blackice one running services . It nice to be able to block various ports and stuff by hand . Black ICe is silent in operation , ZA can be a bit annoying sometimes and only counts to 500 attacks and does not display any info about repeat offenders

 

I use AVG as a anti virus and run it along side the sygate personal firewall sygate blocks everything and asks you if you want your computer to access certain sites which it deams as "risky" quite a gem of a tool and i love AVG because i have scheduled it for a complete check of my 240Gb hdd every day cleans them right up each and every day.


Ah i love my pc.

if you want to stop pop ups then download google toolbar.

just search for it on google and then it will stop most of the spam getting to your pc in the first place.

Slick

 

More security holes than a collander I'm afraid. Switch to zonealarm!

Cheers,

Drew.

 

They are both 5hit.

(Bold statement)


The only 'good' free firewall out there, in fact the only good non-multinational company firewall out there is a linux box, more specifically for home use smoothwall is the daddy.

www.smoothwall.org

It hides in the background and supplies DHCP through its own firewall and proxy cache, as well as giving you VPN, DMZ and routing. I don't know of a better product, and all it needs ias an old PC with a network card.

Dave
Edited by: elucidate

 

how come its so bad

 

I've just ditched zonealarm after using it for ages *Piece of sh1t*

I'd had probs with adsl connection dropping, and cpu spikes, evertually traced to zonealarm.

Now using Sygate personal firewall, great stuff

 

Zonealarm

 

is it worth runnin a firewall if u got a upto date virus checker

 

Yes. They do totally diferent jobs.

Anti-virus: A software program that detects and removes viruses.

Firewall: A system designed to protect a computer network from unauthorized access, especially via the Internet.

But I don't. Cos I have a hardware firewall so don't need one.

 

U use zonalarm but the latest one has issues with Azureus and other b/t clients (100% cpu usage ), tried others but I cant` really get on with them..

 

i use Norton Internet Security and have a hardware firewall built into my router(even thougg i cant configure the ports on the fecker ), never had any probs so far