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Firewall + Antivirus


beat1

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Hi guys. I recently installed W2k3 Server SP1 and then converted into a desktop. My only doubt right now is which firewall and antivirus should i use? Price is not a problem, it just has to be efficient and light. :)

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Lots of people online have been talking about the speed of the new Antivir 7.0beta. I haven't tried it, and know nothing else about it.

If you want a relatively good, somewhat CPU cheap firewall...get Kerio. Kerio Personal Firewall has been discontinued, but many still use it. v4.22-911 is the latest(final), and is quite nice(trial 30 days, and then ad filtering and stuff is disabled..)

If you want something even lighter at the price of features, google "Kerio 2.1.5", and use that. It's likely one of the lightest firewalls out there that actually has a GUI...though the interface is packaged in separate exe's if I remember right... and the interface somewhat reminds me of 98SE.

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What's wrong with the Windows firewall? It's scriptable, doesn't require a special hook .dll into the TCP/IP stack, is configurable and manageable via Group Policy, and blocks inbound traffic just as well as any other software-based firewall out there. I know it lacks outbound firewall blocking, but I don't think that is a horrible thing if you know what is going on internally on your system. We all run antivirus and antispyware, right?

Besides, just because you can block the traffic outbound of a malicious application doesn't remove the application from your system. The next version of Windows will include a two-way firewall, but this version of the Windows firewall is a good inbound firewall, and meets the original posters requirement of "light" (no additional hook .dll into the TCP/IP stack) and efficient (already integrated into the Windows GUI, and easily configurable via the control panel applet).

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Yes - software firewalls need a "hook" into the TCP/IP stack, in order to scan packets that are headed in or out of the box. Since all Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2003 SP1 machines already come with a hook for the Windows firewall, adding another seems like something you'd want to do only if the XP/2003 firewall didn't meet your needs. It's almost always OK to do, but I have seen firewall applications completely hose Windows machines.

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Well i installed Symantec Antivirus (not Norton, its a server-oriented antivirus) and I'm using the Windows Firewall, since i dont need to block the outgoing traffic and if the windows firewall does a good job with the incoming traffic thats ok for me :). Thanks for the help ;)

Edited by beat1
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