Firewall

[C M]

Hi there,

can anybody please advise me of a good free Firewall besides Zone Alarm or is Zone Alarm the best?

I know this has been raised before but i couldnt find the thread

thanks,


Chris.

[fink]

Outpost www.agnitum.com has a good free firewall.. also inludes ad blocking, popup stopping, and active content filtering (java script etc)

Kerio also has a good free one http://www.kerio.com/kerio.html
More basic than Outpost but just as effective and uses slightly less resources & memory if that's an issue.

[P3-450]

Me i think that zone alarm is the best, been using it for a couple of years.

Kerio ain't to bad

Here some prev threads
http://discussions.virtualdr.com/sho...+free+firewall

http://discussions.virtualdr.com/sho...+free+firewall

[jenae]

Hi I use sygate pro, however I have also used the free version, has very good reviews. Either way ZA, Kiero, Sygate you will have good basic protection.

[ecrosson]

I use ZA Pro on my network here, and things run great. It has Ad blocking, and all the bells and whistles available in it too.
I have tried Mcafee, but went back to ZA.
That is my H.O. on the topic.

[kv]

I've used ZA from the first version, and it's always worked well. I always recommend it to my friends, colleagues and customers as a basic requirement, right up there with AV. One of the things I really like about ZA is that aside from watching apps and the internet services they're trying to access, it will also warn you when an application or service has "changed" from the last time you allowed it to access the net. This is a key feature for protecting you from trojans or other malicious apps that wind up replacing legitimate apps on your system using the same filename. It's a minor inconvenience after you do a Windows Update or other upgrade because you have to "re-approve" apps and services for net access, but that's a small price to pay for the extra security.

I must admit I've never tried any of the other products out there so I can't say whether or not they offer the same level of protection.

If you're really concerned about security, ZA Pro is a worthwhile investment. In addition to added features like mail and script blocking, plus privacy controls, it gives you the ability to create real firewall rules at either the interface, network or application level. This is a cool bonus if you know what you're doing, I take applications like Outlook Express and permit only access to SMTP, POP3 and NNTP services... This way, when I get hit with spam that includes web bugs (single-byte images that need to be downloaded from a website and wind up logging your IP address or email address as legitimate) or javascripts, they are not able to connect because ZA Pro is blocking HTTP requests. Just one example, but it's a powerful feature.

At any rate, I'm rambling on a little bit but I'm a big fan of the program...

Just my $0.02...!

KV

[markp62]

Kerio Personal Firewall use far less resources than ZA. Not exactly for the new user to filewalls, but is easier to setup than Sygate [another good one].