Please recommend me a good software firewall...

I liked Sygate. You have to source it from download sites like Tucows.

Sygate allows you the option to block all things, such as Windows files that most of the other software firewall allow through.
 
The_KiD said:
Re: WinXP Firewall

ZDNet said:
Don't let any prompts fool you: Even though it tells you a program has initiated a connection to the Internet and asks if you want to allow this connection, the connection has already occurred. What it's really asking is whether you want to allow the Internet to connect to this program.
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Two things:

1) It really fustrates me they don't inform you of the source or research that justifies that conclusion.

2) If true this means Microsoft got it so fundamentally wrong which I find extremely hard to believe.

Why would a firewall let the outbound connection happen, then query it?
 
AdladUK said:
Do you know if it's possible to turn off it asking about outgoing applications please?

I would like to allow all outbound application requests, as I know I haven't got any spyware/trojan installed.
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If that's your requirment, stick with WinXP firewall as it does that anyway, apparantly. Isn't the idea of spyware and trojans infections that the user doesn't know they are infected, hence outbound protection required?
 
Bane said:
I liked Sygate. You have to source it from download sites like Tucows.

Sygate allows you the option to block all things, such as Windows files that most of the other software firewall allow through.
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Yeah I liked Sygate as well. Few reasons why I decided to find an alternative:

1. It's been bought out by Symantec, which can't be good.
2. There have been no new updates to the program for some time.
3. Recently I've been noticing it use a lot of CPU power. Not sure why this is.
 
spinneR~uk said:
If that's your requirment, stick with WinXP firewall as it does that anyway, apparantly. Isn't the idea of spyware and trojans infections that the user doesn't know they are infected, hence outbound protection required?
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Well if people are careless enough to get spyware and trojans on their machines, what makes you think they are smart enough to click 'no' when prompted by their firewall?

Most people just click 'yes' to stuff, as it's the easy option.
 
AdladUK said:
Well if people are careless enough to get spyware and trojans on their machines, what makes you think they are smart enough to click 'no' when prompted by their firewall?

Most people just click 'yes' to stuff, as it's the easy option.
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Then why bother at all?
 
Final8y said:
Yep comodo is very good. just hope the vista version comes out soon.
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Vista firewall is very good,protects both ways unlike XP,so really no need for a third party firewall with Vista.
 
spinneR~uk said:
Then why bother at all?
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?

Why bother with a firewall? Or why bother not just using the standard XP one?

Obviously you need some form of firewall on your machine to prevent random scanners and attacks.
 
spinneR~uk said:
Two things:

1) It really fustrates me they don't inform you of the source or research that justifies that conclusion.

2) If true this means Microsoft got it so fundamentally wrong which I find extremely hard to believe.

Why would a firewall let the outbound connection happen, then query it?
Click to expand...

I dont think it matters what that particular persons source is as a little reading on the net quickly shows that a lot of people, who are plenty qualified have come to the same conclusions:

The question is "is the Windows Firewall sufficient" though?

The bottom line answer is "no".

The Windows Firewall is much better than its Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) predecessor, but still no match for a 3rd-party personal firewall solution such as ZoneAlarm.
Source: About.com
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And remember what I said above about the XP firewall? That it's new and improved? Well, I need to qualify that statement. Despite the firewall's improvements, it's not invincible. A month ago, I asked Fred Felmen, vice president of marketing for Zone Labs, what impact Windows XP SP2 might have on third-party firewalls such as his Zone Labs ZoneAlarm. He said the Microsoft firewall protects only against inbound threats, not outbound threats, such as keystroke-logging Trojans that report your passwords and credit card info to others. Also, the lack of outbound protection means your infected PC could still participate in distributed denial-of-service attacks. In short, I recommend keeping your third-party firewall enabled alongside Microsoft's. Two firewalls are better than one.
Source: Cnet.com
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@ The_KiD: It seems that every attack on the XP firewall is because it offers no outbound protection.

TBH if you've got spyware/trojans on your machine then you're probably screwed anyway.

I know 100% that I have neither, so the standard XP firewall may work fine.

I do however take note that hackers and spammers have probably come up with ways to bypass the inbound protection as well. And it's probably widely accepted that dedicated firewall applications such as Comodo have better inbound protection anyway.
 
I asked Fred Felmen, vice president of marketing for Zone Labs
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LOL!

Like that guy is gonna give an unbiased response.

ZoneAlarm is on a fast course to becoming the new Symantec.

(And I mean that as an insult)
 
I feel a little on my own here but since I swapped over to Vista I have been using Kaspersky Internet Security Suite 6 and personaly thinks its excellent, couldn't get any of the others to work on vista but on xp I used Kerio also prefering the old version 2.xxx

Cheers
 
AdladUK said:
Do you know if it's possible to turn off it asking about outgoing applications please?

I would like to allow all outbound application requests, as I know I haven't got any spyware/trojan installed.
Click to expand...

You can stop it asking all the time, so it will only ask the once and thats it like Za by going to Security, then Advanced on the left, then the Miscellaneous, then drop the frequency Alert slider to the bottom, as if you notice some of them say 2 of 20 and stuff, so you know theres gona be 20 alerts. :)
 
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