Software firewall recommendations?

Tim Murray

the Windom Earle of mobile SOCs
Veteran
So I've been using Kerio Personal Firewall, but as of the last version, UT2004 goes to hell when I try to play online (kills the system when KPF is installed, even if it's not running), so I'm looking for something new.

Does ZoneAlarm suck as much as I remember it sucking? What about Sygate? Any other ones I should be thinking of?
 
all i can say is that i used ZA, upgraded it to full version to try it.....5 hours later i was looking for another FW. unfortunatlly for you...it's Kerio.

maybe try Outpost....not that bad...
 
I really dig KPF, but I don't play UT2k4. Have you tried KPF 2.1.5?

I have a perhaps irrational disinclination towards ZA since I read the early versions didn't start as a system service, whereas TPF (from which I migrated to KPF) did. Then again, ZA is pretty highly rated nowadays. Pretty cheap, too.

(Personally, I'm deciding between the $10AR PC-Cillin 2005 download at NewEgg and the free AR ZASS 5.5 at Amazon. Or I could just stick with AVG + KPF.)
 
With a good entry level HW-firewall prices beginning at $50, I don't see why anyone would want to use SW-firewalls nowadays. Especially because they'll double your ping in online games (and that's kinda best-case scenario, it'll rather go from 50 to 300).

I bought a cheap-o D-Link DSL-564 modem/firewall a few months ago and I live happier ever since :D
 
HW-level firewalls don't give you real-time and per-app control, do they? I think my two routers offer some sort of firewall functionality, but maybe I haven't experienced what the latest SPI firewall routers can do. Kerio is just so handy, though, and I don't think it affects my pings. You've made me curious, though. Time for some play-testing.
 
I'm a gamer ... and i use Sygate, the free version .. never noticed any problems. Highly recommend this one .. and i tested almost all the firewalls.

RainZ
 
A good HW firewall is the way to go. And if you want all the bells and whistles for a small price, check out Linksys.

As for application access control: why would you want that? Run a good spysweeper, keep your system clean and you don't need it. Use Firefox and a good virusscanner, and there is nothing coming in that you want to keep out. Don't forget that a router does NAT as well.

And if in doubt: check the logfile of your router to see what's happening and what to do about it.
 
Does NAT really mask my IP to websites? I always thought they could figure it out rather easily, NAT or not.

Edit: Makes sense. Thanks.
 
Pete said:
Does NAT really mask my IP to websites? I always thought they could figure it out rather easily, NAT or not.

Only an anonymizer can do that. Google. If there is nothing in between that will NAT your IP adress to their own IP adress, your own adress will be send as there would be no way to return the content otherwise. Return to sender: adress unknown.

Edit: if you mean the IP adress on your private LAN: that's what NAT is for. And no, that isn't detectable.
 
The Baron said:
I'm in a dorm. A hardware firewall would be very silly.

Why? Just because your university has a honkin' big hardware firewall at your border router, it doesn't mean that you're safe from everyone else at your college inside that router and on the same network as you. How many of them do you think will get viruses or worms through downloading that will then try and infect your machine?

A lot of companies get caught out regularly because they have strong defences at their borders, but they allow people to bring their laptops home, get infected, and then come in to work and plug it into the LAN where weak internal defences allow the virus to spread. The strong border defences have been circumvented.

I'd use a hardware firewall in a dorm if it means not having to trust that everyone else in the dorm is never going to screw up or do stupid stuff with their PCs. Especially as they cost peanuts.
 
The Baron said:
I'm in a dorm. A hardware firewall would be very silly.

You would not believe the number of worms running around on a typical college campus' network (inside their firewall).

I have had friends reformat their computer...then upon rebooting a fresh WinXP installation and connecting to the school net (and internet) had their computer almost instantly infected....sad... :?
 
The BBC program, "click online", demonstrated how quickly an unprotected PC could be infected when connected to the net. They used bog-standard Windows XP and from dial-up it was hit in under 10 seconds. It was scary.
 
Simon F said:
The BBC program, "click online", demonstrated how quickly an unprotected PC could be infected when connected to the net. They used bog-standard Windows XP and from dial-up it was hit in under 10 seconds. It was scary.

surprised? i am not....
 
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