Windows 7 - built in firewall or zone alarm?
- Thread starter ajf
- Start date
Bet he's popular with the IT team.
They are usually fairly secure out of box, but they certainly need checking. Firewall routers aimed at home users are going to be more slack (more convenient) and thus need a once-over by someone who knows what they're looking for. Default passwords must ALWAYS be changed.
Lol. I am the IT team - well one of them
Actually it's a really nice laptop but considering several of our packages do not work on Win7 glad it is for 'offsite' use! Windows 7 firewall it will be for him then....
I certainly have changed default passwords on any router I have, just wondered what else to dig into. I have to be honest that firewalls and security is one area I only really deal with the basics. Our corporate firewalls (hardware) are all managed by the IT Manager.
Some other interesting posts there too, especially Fire Wizards. Assuming that is all true (no reason to say otherwise) and the comments here, I am starting to wonder what is the point of security packages such as Kaspersky etc?
I know many on here just use something like the firewalls mentioned then a light AV such as AVG(?) or Avast!....
Andrew
As always they think they can do it better and want to charge you more money for it. There is nothing wrong with trying to make a superior product, but by and large they are utterly pointless for the vast majority of people.
If you have a specialist need that the Windows Firewall does not provide then that makes sense, otherwise... why?
If you have a specialist need that the Windows Firewall does not provide then that makes sense, otherwise... why?
Anybody who doesn't use outbound filtering would be stunned at the amount of outbound connection attempts by supposedly legitimate apps. I object to this 'phoning home' scenario and its one of the main reasons I deploy outbound filtering [and no, windows firewall 'vanilla' doesn't limit this behaviour].
I like ZoneAlarm telling me something's trying to have a chat.
I don't always use stuff that is 100% absolutely fine and dandy. I very often tell said programs to shut up and not try to call for help. You get a helpful little popup like this: ZA popup.
Does cause problems sometimes if a program changes because it refuses to allow access til you agree to it.
For example: Red Alert 3 can crash during startup after an update because during startup it checks for internet access, the update changes the program so a ZoneAlarm popup will appear on your desktop to see if you still want it to have access after the change, you can't agree to it because the game is fullscreened and the game crashes without a response.
That's fixable by allowing all programs access while starting RA3 up then once it's fully up turning allowed access back on, popup will appear safely, no crashes
I don't always use stuff that is 100% absolutely fine and dandy. I very often tell said programs to shut up and not try to call for help. You get a helpful little popup like this: ZA popup.
Does cause problems sometimes if a program changes because it refuses to allow access til you agree to it.
For example: Red Alert 3 can crash during startup after an update because during startup it checks for internet access, the update changes the program so a ZoneAlarm popup will appear on your desktop to see if you still want it to have access after the change, you can't agree to it because the game is fullscreened and the game crashes without a response.
That's fixable by allowing all programs access while starting RA3 up then once it's fully up turning allowed access back on, popup will appear safely, no crashes
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+1 for comodo, you can control and customize it so much, its free, and supports both 32 and 64 bit O/S's.