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Thread: Software Firewalls... what's hot & what's not?

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    0iD
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    Software Firewalls... what's hot & what's not?

    OK, lets get this out of the way first, it's for my lappy that i take out on the road with me, not the home network. That sits behind a dedicated hardware device.

    Mi new lappy however goes with me hither & yon across the country, europe & far/middle east and will therefore be exposed to allsorts (and the odd vicious jellybaby). The old one i had ran Sygate Personal Firewall Pro, but seeing as they gor assimilated by the Symantec Borg, what's a good replacement? Did used to use ZoneAlarm pro, but I had conflicts with a couple of CAD apps & Sygate was a good, if not better replacement.

    So, to save me Googling, does anyone have first hand recomendations? Was thinking Kiero...?
    [
    Quote Originally Posted by Blitzen
    When I say go, both walk in the opposite direction for 10 paces, draw handbags, then bitch-slap each other!

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    Administrator Moby-Dick's Avatar
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    Kerio is quite good - I used to recommend Outpost Pro to my road warriors.
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    0iD
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    As usual Chris, your word is Gold

    We must have that chat sometime.
    [
    Quote Originally Posted by Blitzen
    When I say go, both walk in the opposite direction for 10 paces, draw handbags, then bitch-slap each other!

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    My favourite firewall was to be Kerio / Tiny personal firewall version 2. It's very old, just about fits on a floppy disc and works at a very low level, giving you a very compact kernel which filters every packet in and out.

    You have a very simple interface where you define protocol / port / application, etc. Applications you permit are scanned and generate an MD5 checksum so it covers you against spoof apps which replace and pretend to be the original one.

    However if you need to use the hibernate function on your laptop, it may not work as it interferes with the hardware Also, I think it only supports IP, i.e. TCP / UDP / ICMP, etc. No support for IPX/Netbeui/etc, but you probably don't need them / have those protocols bound to your NIC.

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    Ooh, that sounds a rather interesting thing to try out, XP compatible?

    I shall give it a google.
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    You want to find Kerio Personal Firewall 2.1.5. Yes, it's XP-friendly. Only issue I've found is the hibernation mentioned before.

    That was the last version and I'd still use it when I have a use. When I said it's easy, I mean you have to know what you're doing as it's a rules-based firewall. But if you have a common understanding of network stuff, it's fantastic as it lets you define exactly what goes on, and doesn't try and "interpret" stuff for you.

    You can set it so that any non-defined network activity brings up a popup window and from there you define a rule, i.e. allow all outgoing TCP connections to all destination IPs on port 80 and 443 for normal and secure web browsing, etc.

    The thing you have to be careful is that you have to ensure you put your rules in the correct order, as they are prioritised in the table. It's just like ACLs. It compares the traffic against the first rule. If that's not good, it goes to the second and so on until it reaches the end of the table. If non of the filter rules are applicable to the traffic, it just blocks it / ignores it.

    Simple and effective, just how proper security systems work

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    If you want Ultimate Protections use "Jetico" Its free and came Number#1 in all tests including it that i have seen. This beats commercial software firewalls aswell as freeware ones.

    Runner up on the firewall test was Look'nStop, Kerio wasnt far behind.


    **I Only recommend Jetico for high skill users (I mean High) or for users that dont play games and require such high levels.**

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    Is ZoneAlarm still not the best free firewall available then?

    I'm still using version 3.7 and never had any reason to upgrade.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Asghar View Post
    Is ZoneAlarm still not the best free firewall available then?

    I'm still using version 3.7 and never had any reason to upgrade.
    It does win some tests but the expert users (like the guys above) try other ones.

    I'm still with ZoneAlarm Free - thinking of upgrading though.

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    I still love sygate - does the job perfectly

    Zonealarm - While I dont know how effective it is, it sure caused a hell of a lot of other issues for a friend who had it installed. Silly amount of resources being used, not turning off when being told too, and just generaly being a PITA.

    Keep meaning to try Kerio out.
    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    And by trying to force me to like small pants, they've alienated me.

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    From what I heard the PCTools offering isnt too bad.

    http://www.pctools.com/firewall/

    Not used it myself though.

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    Quote Originally Posted by CrazyMonkey View Post
    If you want Ultimate Protections use "Jetico" Its free and came Number#1 in all tests including it that i have seen. This beats commercial software firewalls aswell as freeware ones.

    Runner up on the firewall test was Look'nStop, Kerio wasnt far behind.


    **I Only recommend Jetico for high skill users (I mean High) or for users that dont play games and require such high levels.**
    How can Jetico be good when it's only 2.7mb (version 1) and ZoneAlarm is like 20mb?

  13. #13
    Metier9
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    Got some bit defender CDs from Scan today... will have to see what its like

    Maybe Jericho is command line based?

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    Still using sygate here...

    Firewalls arent like antivirus software, they dont need updating every day.

    Sygate still does the job for me so ill keep it until I upgrade to Vista then I'll probably go for a newer one...

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    Quote Originally Posted by amjedm View Post
    How can Jetico be good when it's only 2.7mb (version 1) and ZoneAlarm is like 20mb?
    Probably all the fancy bits Zonealarm comes with, I use Sygate personally and it's a pity that norton???(I think) accquired it and developement stopped.

    Curly

  16. #16
    Nox
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    another vote for tiny personal firewall, has to be an old version though, back before they got expiry/trial versions. Very small.

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