A good Fire wall

[Patrician]

Is Nortons 2001 Firewall very good. and if not what is.

Patrician

 

[Thor_Sevan]

I use ZONE ALARM. Ii think its the best firewall ever for home users cause:
1. Its FREE !!!
2. VERY powerfull
3. Very simple to use
4. Blocks everything

I can say that this program saved my life many times now.

 

[Need4Speed]

another vote for zonealarm...

 

[crazychicken]

best firewall: Linksys Router
it completely denies all access to all ports

don't bother with software , they suck

 

[chuckieland]

zone alarm is good too
and it's free

 

[John]

BlackICE for a software solution.

 

[Yzzim]

<< best firewall: Linksys Router
it completely denies all access to all ports

don't bother with software , they suck >>



Ok, half of that statement is true. If you're looking for a cheap solution then Zone Alarm (which is free) will work just fine. If you want a firewall for any type of buisness or if you have VERY personal info on your computer then get the Router.

 

[Radboy]

Review

Linkage

 

[JoPalm]

Zonealarm for software.

LinkSYS Router for hardware.

I use zonealarm too, as do some of you here. Very good firewall, sometimes i wish it wouldn't block EVERYTHING though...hehe.
Very secure. If a website try's to install a program on your comp. ZA will block it..happened to me once.

 

[emjem]

At least one of these router firewalls had leaks. Are there more that haven't been exposed yet?

I use ZoneAlarm and feel safe with it.

 

[The Wildcard]

I use zonealarm too. I have to say, i have been using a firewall for a couple of months now and it has defiantely made me feel safer. Now, when i occasionally turn off my firewall, i feel very unprotectected...

 

[joohang]

I use Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/isa/default.asp

 

[airfoil]

My vote goes to BlackIce defender from Network Ice.

 

[Jal]

Another vote for ZA

 

[BT7990]

If you can't afford a hardware firewall or really don't need one, Zone Alarm is the way to go..

IMHO

 

[lazyboy]

Zonealarm for software, Linksys router for hardware.

 

[sharkeeper]

The way I look at is if you really NEED a hardware firewall, you're gonna go with a solid solution like Sonic Wall Pro, Cisco PIX, etc.

Norton Internet Security I believe is @Guard in a different package! I use @Guard 3.22 for the ad filtering. It does have a nice firewall but asks a lot of questions when you first set it up and have internet applications going.

You cannot beat Zone Alarm by any means! It's FREE and it works! What more could you ask for?

Cheers!

 

[TheOverlord]

zonealarm is good but dont think is impregnable...ive read that you can get past it with only a few lines of code by making it think a packet is intended for one of the programs that you have allowed access to the internet...just be aware that because of its simplicity it isnt the best firewall out there, but for the price it cant be beat.

i used it till i got my linksys router...

 

[sharkeeper]

A router will not protect you against a trojan! All firewalls will block incoming packets for sure. (providing you didn't override that with DMZ or accidental forwarding!)

The latest variants of TH viruses rename themselves to iexplore.exe so ZA doesn't trigger a warning. Of course, if you practice safe email attachment practices, this isn't an issue. If that fails, a good virus program works.

Cheers!

 

[TungFree]

I have the hardware baricade SMC router and I will be installing the Zone Alarm on each computer of my network, as an added precaution.

TungFree

 

[Kenneth]

&quot;The latest variants of TH viruses rename themselves to iexplore.exe so ZA doesn't trigger a warning. Of course, if you practice safe email attachment practices, this isn't an issue. If that fails, a good virus program works.&quot;

This does not fool ZA, as it does a checksum on any program attempting to connect to the internet to see if it matches the recorded checksum.

 

[sharkeeper]

<< This does not fool ZA, as it does a checksum on any program attempting to connect to the internet to see if it matches the recorded checksum >>



I didn't know that. That's a great feature! However, what if the TH clones that checksum?

There was an article on this a while back. It's a never ending battle between the virus writers and the software writers I suppose. Why can't they just kiss each other, make love or whatever and give up?

Cheers!

 

[dadx2mj]

I have Norton Personal Firewall and like it a lot. It is regularly updated threw the Live Update part of the program. I know a guy who is a hacker and claims he can get through Zonealarm but he could not get past my Nortons Firewall. I am just going by his claims I have never actually seen him get past Zonealarm.

 

[Kenneth]

&quot;I didn't know that. That's a great feature! However, what if the TH clones that checksum?&quot;

ZA uses a cryptographic method called a MD5 checksum. I know very little about it, but I understand it is virtually impossible to get a different program to produce the same result.

You can actually see this feature in action. If you give a program permission to access the internet and then patch or update it, ZA will ask you again next time you try to use it on the web.

What I wonder is: what if the virus or trojan directly attacks the firewall? Corrupts or deletes it, for example.

 

[Raincity]

I like ZA also but I use the Pro version personally because you can specificly cofigured what kind of packets can be accepted for each virtual port and since my cable provider uses dchp I need to accept icmp packets from them to renew my IP lease or be forced to reboot the machine to renew it. The free version does not allow you to cofigure each virtual port individually.

Rain