Firewalls.

[Dave_07]

Hey All,

I've been using the Zone-Alarm Pro free trial demo for the past few days, and was happy with it's efforts. I was all set to upgrade it's licence and buy myself a full copy. However from today, now, it dosen't seem to be working. It just blocks everything now, eg when it is on nothing (in or out traffic) works at all, where as just afew days ago it was working fine, eg it blocked the things I wanted it to, and allowed the things I wanted to work, to work.
Now tho, it's god mad. Tried restoring a backup image of it that was taken when it was first installed, didn't work.

So as you can image don't think i'll be buying it now, lol.
Anyway, I need either any ideas on what might be wrong with the ZA, or suggestions on other firewalls that I could use.
Oh, and on a side note, being still quite new to fw's I need a fw that has tooltips or a helper programe build in to it that is designed for newbie fw users, as I can recall with ZA, alot of the time I didn't have a clue what half the settings where or what they did, eg dhp, dns, protocall, ports etc etc..

Cheers, Dave.

[Blub2k]

www.zonelabs.com then go to the consumer support section and use the instant online support.
With regard to easier firewalls, you wont get much easier than zone alarm.

[Kezzer]

Do what us monkeys do. IP-Cop box as the routing machine to the Internet which is designed as a firewall / routing OS. It can run on a 486! Really great stuff. It means i don't have to run a firewall on any system in my house at all

[directhex]

the best software firewall is Sygate Personal Firewall - free version available, much more customisable than ZA, noen of the horrible STOP error problems of ZA, none of the network traffic blocking of ZA...

[Blub2k]

none of the network traffic blocking of ZA...

So it's not a firewall then??

[directhex]

ZA will indiscriminantly block all SMB traffic without asking, in my experience.

people running home networks might actually WANT to share files with each other.

[Merlin]

It's easy enough to set ZA up so you can share files. I should know, I'm doing it at the moment!

[Vimeous]

Just incase you didn't know, WinXP SP2 will include a heavily upgraded firewall (I note you have XP Home with its basic firewall already), so it may be worth soldiering on until SP2 appears sometime in the summer.

We're running a stand-alone Smoothwall box here (we did have a 486 running a linux firewall off a single floppy disc for a while) and it is doing a grand job.

Merlin do you have any tips on how you've got your ZA set-up? Dave might find them very usefull.

[Blub2k]

Here is Floydmans take on securing Zone Alarm:

http://www.geocities.com/floydian_99/za.html

It is worth checking out.

He also has some interesting security articles on other stuff here:

http://www.geocities.com/floydian_99/

[Clingy]

After reading a review of firewalls, I have always used Norton. Never had a problem and the 2004 version includes some nice extras. You pays you money (or not).....

[Dave_07]

Cheers guys,

So the in-built XP fw is going to be beefed up then? Any idea how good it's going to be ? As I've been debating with myself wether to spend money on a fw or try and make do with a free one, and end up having to use a host of other free odd's & ends to sort out add blocking & cache cleaning etc etc...

That link on secruing za was most helpfull, are there any sites that give a complete library on what all these letter abbreviations such as "netBIOS name" "dns" "dhcp" "upd port" "icmp/echo" "igmp" etc etc.. all mean and what all the seemingly thousands and thousands of prot numbers all are and what they do/mean.

Thx, Dave.

[Blub2k]

That link on secruing za was most helpfull, are there any sites that give a complete library on what all these letter abbreviations such as "netBIOS name" "dns" "dhcp" "upd port" "icmp/echo" "igmp" etc etc.. all mean and what all the seemingly thousands and thousands of prot numbers all are and what they do/mean.

Thx, Dave.

Really Dave you need to study TCP/IP to get a better idea.
There is a common port list available here http://www.pantz.org/networking/tcpip/ports.shtml
and here http://www.iana.org/numbers.html (very detailed)
Most of that will only either a/bore you or b/Bring you to the realisation that you need to study TCP/IP.
Good luck