best free firewall for windows XP?
Discussion
I've just rebuilt me PC and instead of putting Norton's Personal Firewall back on there, which i find slow and bloated, is there a free personal firewall that does what it says on the tin and is small a quick, which doesn't take up much memory?
I've also swtich over to AVG anitvirus and found that this freebie is better cmopared to the big 2.
I've also swtich over to AVG anitvirus and found that this freebie is better cmopared to the big 2.
gizard said:
AdvocatusDiaboli said:
Sygate do a fantastic product. I found zonealarm to sometimes f up things...
Zonelabs messes up wireless connectivity good and proper!!!!
Glad someone agrees! Both great products, I used ZA for 2 years till it went AWOL. Have used sygate since, absolutely painless...till now!
ThePassenger said:
Windows XP SP2 has a built-in firewall. It's rather basic but does what it says on the tin.
out of interest how does Windows own flavour of protection stack up with the free versions out there ? Being Microsoft I'm imagining 9/10 for market share, 1/10 for ability ?
Edited by che6mw on Friday 24th November 22:17
che6mw said:
ThePassenger said:
Windows XP SP2 has a built-in firewall. It's rather basic but does what it says on the tin.
out of interest how does Windows own flavour of protection stack up with the free versions out there ? Being Microsoft I'm imagining 9/10 for market share, 1/10 for ability ?
Edited by che6mw on Friday 24th November 22:17
It's very basic. It has no understanding of secure/unsecure network works, and simply does basic port blocking based on applications (i.e. if you install Apache it will ask if Apache can be allowed access). However, as long as you aren't surfing dodgy sites it's more than enough for basic internet stuff (it'll stop viruses and messenger spam).
The other issue with the XP Pro in-built firewall, as I understand it, is that it won't block outgoing connections *at all*. Therefore, if you do happen to encounter any malware, there would be nothing to stop it connecting out to other machine or to "phone home".
My own system protection consists of my D-Link router with NAT and built-in firewall, as well as Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall for anything else that gets through. I'm generally pretty careful with emails and websites and deliberately don't use IE or Outlook. I only have a rudimentary free AV scanner which I run from time to time.
You can see how visible your system is to the rest of the 'net by using the free ShieldsUp service here...
https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2
[k]
My own system protection consists of my D-Link router with NAT and built-in firewall, as well as Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall for anything else that gets through. I'm generally pretty careful with emails and websites and deliberately don't use IE or Outlook. I only have a rudimentary free AV scanner which I run from time to time.
You can see how visible your system is to the rest of the 'net by using the free ShieldsUp service here...
https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2
[k]
[quote=kar|]The other issue with the XP Pro in-built firewall, as I understand it, is that it won't block outgoing connections *at all*. Therefore, if you do happen to encounter any malware, there would be nothing to stop it connecting out to other machine or to "phone home". [/quote]
It will and it won't.
Often when you install something that the firewall doesn't know about (i.e. Apache, a game, etc.) it will prompt for what you want to do (block this time, keep blocking and never prompt again, don't block) although it won't do that with any system services; so if something gets in to the system and pretends to be say svchost.exe then it's off and running.
But then again, even ZoneAlarm would fall for that if you've already given the regular generic Win32 version permission to escape.
It will and it won't.
Often when you install something that the firewall doesn't know about (i.e. Apache, a game, etc.) it will prompt for what you want to do (block this time, keep blocking and never prompt again, don't block) although it won't do that with any system services; so if something gets in to the system and pretends to be say svchost.exe then it's off and running.
But then again, even ZoneAlarm would fall for that if you've already given the regular generic Win32 version permission to escape.
Edited by ThePassenger on Sunday 26th November 16:51
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