The Best Firewall

[Combat squirrel]

As title, been wading through previous posts for hours and carnt find anything of decent use.

I Currently Use ZoneAlarm Pro, it keeps crashing every 10mins, it carnt Handle the I/O i think of my computer.

Next Iv learned everyone is saying use Sygate Personal Firewall, but when I go to try and get that I get symantec (I.E. Norton Firewall) and everyone knows to stay clear of that, SO what DO i use folks ?

 

[NathanE]

Either buy a NAT router or use Windows Firewall. There's really no need to use anything else, and certainly no need to start buying software.

 

[Burnsy2023]

I use ISA 2004, but I think thats a little OTT.

NathanE is right, there's no need to pay good money when there are perfectly good free alternatives.

Burnsy

 

[aardvark]

i use kerio personnal firewall - free and never had any problems

 

[Combat squirrel]

Interesting, well I am running my netgear router with its firewall enabled, but when using ZoneAlarm I totalled 500,000 + 'attacks' on my computer, hence why I thought it couldnt handle it, was that internal network accesses or wha ?

 

[Sterny]

Next Iv learned everyone is saying use Sygate Personal Firewall, but when I go to try and get that I get symantec (I.E. Norton Firewall) and everyone knows to stay clear of that, SO what DO i use folks ?

You can still get the last free version of Sygate before Symantec took it over from Tucows. I still use it and find it gets along better with my PC than the newer Zone Alarms.

 

[Rich]

I use the IOS firewall and IP Inspect on the Cisco router i have.

On the desktop itself i use Nod32 and Prevx from www.prevx.com.

Prevx is a Host Intrusion prevention product which seems to be working very well Not that Nod32 ever misses anything, but its always worth having backup in place for £11 a year. Infact, i wouldnt be suprised if you could use Prevx on its own.

 

[awaybreaktoday]

Ghostwall is a very good firewall plus it is free.

 

[jbloggs]

It really is quite amazing how much decent free stuff, ie firewalls and antivirus programs, there is knocking about.

 

[Gas Panic!]

Forgive my ignorance, but is Norton really that bad? My subscription ends in a few weeks, and I'll be looking to get something less resource hungry, but only if it offers the same/better protection.

 

[AJUK]

Yes, it is that bad; you'll see when you try to remove it from your system.

I suggest that you try out a few trials before jumping in. Bitdefender or Kaspersky for an all in one suite. Avast or NOD32, Windows Firewall and an antispyware is all you will need and all are free!

 

[Pulseammo]

i use kerio personnal firewall - free and never had any problems

KPF is great. Too bad sunbelt took over it now though, they've introduced a bug whereby sometimes when you shut down it pops up an error because the firewall doesn't shut down fast enough. Thats hardly a problem. What is a problem though is their stupid popup that seems to come up at random asking you if you want to register. Stupid. Kerio used to be a really great firewall otherwise when it was still owned by the original company .

 

[Deleted member 58846]

zone alarm is good, but I still prefer a hardware firewall anyday over software.

 

[Edinho]

Either buy a NAT router or use Windows Firewall. There's really no need to use anything else, and certainly no need to start buying software.

Like he said anything else is a waste of money. Infact I would go so far, if you dont have any sensitive information on your pc and back up regularly then you dont even need one.

 

[CoXeY]

I totalled 500,000 + 'attacks' on my computer

I would take a closer look at your router settings before considering a firewall. The router should be configured to use NAT and then pass only specific ports onto your system's internal IP (HTTP or SMTP for example). If you are receiving that many attacks then it's likely your router is not filtering any traffic and is treating your internal machine like a DMZ.

You can use a port scanner to determine whether you have any ports open.


Dan.

 

[Wyvern971]

I would take a closer look at your router settings before considering a firewall. The router should be configured to use NAT and then pass only specific ports onto your system's internal IP (HTTP or SMTP for example). If you are receiving that many attacks then it's likely your router is not filtering any traffic and is treating your internal machine like a DMZ.

TBH I doubt that you usually have to set up port forwarding manually as factory default is disabled.

From what I remember Zone Alarm seems to pick lots of non existant hacking attempts (last time I used it anyway) Hardware firewalls would free up resources, but tbh these days it really won't make much difference (unless you're using a resource hungry system like norton).

I run a HW firewall but that's only because I was studying PIX firewalls at the time and needed one for testing

 

[Ratbag]

I suggest you check out Ashampoo Firewall. It's free, resource friendly, and does exactly what it says on the tin. I don't recommend Windows Firewall as there is no outbound filtering.

 

[mike1210]

I use the IOS firewall and IP Inspect on the Cisco router i have.

On the desktop itself i use Nod32 and Prevx from www.prevx.com.

Prevx is a Host Intrusion prevention product which seems to be working very well Not that Nod32 ever misses anything, but its always worth having backup in place for £11 a year. Infact, i wouldnt be suprised if you could use Prevx on its own.

me 2 except the prevx, ill check that out though

 

[flying grouse]

these reports of attacks are not that true, isp servers can ping your m/c causing these false reports..............

 

[Escape]

Zonelabs are going the same way as Symantec, I'd avoid both of them.

Even with a hardware firewall, it's good to use software on your PC(s) to check outbound connections. Jetico is quite well regarded. Though it takes some dedication to setup.