Spec me a new Firewall

Monstermunch · 3 Mar 2006 at 23:51

I've been using Avast together with Sygate now for about a year or so and they've been working very well. Unfortunately Sygate has been bought out by Symantec

(who make Norton AV) and they have stopped producing support for it.

I have used zone alarm in the past but found that after a period of time it blocks all program access to the net, as I believe most people have experienced with it.

Basically I need a replacement for Sygate that is just as good and free as well, any ideas?

Mr Blonde · 4 Mar 2006 at 02:32

Kerio Personal Firewall gets quite a few thumbs up.
http://download.kerio.com/dwn/kpf/kerio-pf-4.1.2-en-win.exe

Tiny Personal Firewall
http://www.tinysoftware.com/home/tiny2/tpf05

After having comapatibility problems with the old Kerio 2.1.5 and Zonealarm I did a search over on the Wilders Security forums. A few people there are using Netveda's Safety.Net so I thought I'd give it a go. So far I'm pleased with it.
http://www.netveda.com/downloads/downloadform.asp?product=sn&lic=client

marc2003 · 4 Mar 2006 at 02:36

zone alarm version 3.1

an old version of za. does the job.

Etaqua · 4 Mar 2006 at 11:36

Hardware firewall + SP2 firewall.

mrk · 4 Mar 2006 at 11:45

You don't need both, you only need one. t's a waste of time and resources using a hw and sw firewall for any home user.

Etaqua · 4 Mar 2006 at 12:50

That depends how much you value your privacy.

mrk · 4 Mar 2006 at 13:00

No it doesn't, anyone with common sense and basic internet knowledge knows when and where their privacy is at risk when online. 2 firewalls may sound safe but it's no diffreent than one firewall. A firewalls job is to stealth your ports and stop intrusion which the majority of *** time is nothing but your ISPs own systems making sure everything is in check.

Things like this just make people more paranoid for no reason which leads to suggestions like the above...

chex · 4 Mar 2006 at 14:11

Etaqua said:
Hardware firewall + SP2 firewall.

O.o

you actually use sp2 firewall?

...its more a neon sign saying "h4x me plx" than a firewall

outpost's a pretty good free firewall

marc2003 · 4 Mar 2006 at 14:25

chex said:
O.o

you actually use sp2 firewall?

...its more a neon sign saying "h4x me plx" than a firewall

shows how much you know.

an attacker from the outside cannot tell what firewall you are running. i've been using the xp firewall alone since before sp1 and have never been compromised.

Etaqua · 4 Mar 2006 at 14:37

mrk said:
No it doesn't, anyone with common sense and basic internet knowledge knows when and where their privacy is at risk when online. 2 firewalls may sound safe but it's no diffreent than one firewall.

The SP2 firewall gives the user easier program access control, which saves them potentially opening the wrong port in the hardware firewall control panel.

It's not to do with both of them stealthing the same port or anything like that.