What firewall with avast?

simon22

simon22

simon22

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Joined
30 Nov 2009
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423
Hey guys, my Norton 360 subscription has expired, and I found an alternative AV, avast that is, so I was thinking since it has no firewall included, should I go grab myself a firewall off the net(that would include your help:D) or just stick to with the default windows firewall...

im on windows xp pro btw.

cheers for looking:)
 
zone alarm is free and pretty good for incoming and outgoing connections.
but the xp firewall is good as well for incoming connections
 
If you have to ask you won't need anything other than the built-in firewall. :)

Stick with the Windows firewall.
 
You don't need outbound filtering except if you are particularly anal about legitimate software phoning home. Malware will just bypass outbound filtering.
 
SiriusB said:
You don't need outbound filtering except if you are particularly anal about legitimate software phoning home. Malware will just bypass outbound filtering.
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Well, I suppose I am. I do like to know what traffic is going out of my PC and from which application. That way if a piece of Malware is trying to send out traffic on an allowed port at least I will know about it.
 
Ranked1_of_1 said:
Well, I suppose I am. I do like to know what traffic is going out of my PC and from which application. That way if a piece of Malware is trying to send out traffic on an allowed port at least I will know about it.
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How? Once you've allowed something access smart malware will just hijack it, unless you analyse every outbound connection everytime it connects you may never know.
 
Dano said:
How? Once you've allowed something access smart malware will just hijack it, unless you analyse every outbound connection everytime it connects you may never know.
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Sunbelt PF also brings up Permit\Deny prompts whenever anything attempts to change an application. It can be a bit of a pain when you're updating software, but it also means you are prompted if any Malware attempts to hijack another application.
 
TBF, comodos free things can do exactly the same. However they default to white list like everything else because frankly, manually building up the list at the beginning leave you wanting to bang your head on the desk...

On the plus side, it's extremely effective.
 
I use Comodo Internet security 5 and i find it much better than the windows firewall. It's one of the best firewalls and also has HIPS, just having an antivirus isn't enough in my opinion, careful or not.

Once you get used to using Comodo and know how to answer the pop ups, it's fantastic.

Since you're asking what firewall to use, then Comodo might not be for you and you would be better just sticking with the windows firewall, but it's worth a try since it's free.
 
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SiriusB said:
You don't need outbound filtering except if you are particularly anal about legitimate software phoning home. Malware will just bypass outbound filtering.
Click to expand...

True.. when you are at home / work, on your fat internet pipe.

When you are elsewhere, and only have a laptop and a 3G dongle ( with a prohibitively high cost per MB ), you will not appreciate it when that rogue 'legitimate' software decides to pull down a large update without informing you first.
 
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