Security Question?

[vegettoxp]

Hey Guys

I wanted to know if someone can help me out. Since Norton took away my favorite firewall SYGATE, now I need to find a new firewall. I really liked Sygate and I still use it for now. But I know at a point I am gona have to switch to a newer firewall. So if anybody can recommend some really good firewalls that work close to like Sygate, I would be really Thankful. If their is a Full Sute, I don't mind that either. I just wanna really good firewall. So If anybody got any recommendation, I am listening. I Am using Avast has my virus protection.

Thank You for your Input,

P.S. Fusion

[Scubar]

i used to use sygate too, the only other decent firewall is Agnitum Outpost, Zonealarm was good along time ago but that too has now become a crappy interfearing nuissance program.

[DigeratiPrime]

i am using a combination of my router (NAT Firewall) and Winpooch (application firewall). Works for me.

[Jeremy]

I tried Winpooch and thought it was a really silly program. I use Outpost Firewall which took some getting used to after having previously been a Sygate user, too. However, it gives more info in what I consider a more organized GUI than Sygate. At any time, I can see which application is using bandwidth and which ports (local and remote). Zxian was also a Sygate fan (he was the one who got me to use it in the first place) but once I told him about Outpost, he also switched.

[vegettoxp]

Thx Everybody!

[Zxian]

Yup... I confess. I'm using Outpost now. Like Jeremy said, it takes some getting used to, but it's a firewall for the more paranoid of us. I just disable all the plugins except for the Attack Detection and the DNS Cache (and then you can disable the Windows DNS Cache service), and it's fine for me. The only slight gripe I've got with it is the fact that you can't hide the tray icon. I want my firewall (and AV) to just sit in the background and do it's job. If it crashes or gets shutdown by some malicious program, then it's not a very good firewall in the first place.

I've also tried out Winpooch, but the lack of a service configuration makes it a no-hit for me. It seems like it's got a lot of potential, but it's still a WIP.

[DigeratiPrime]

I am completely aware of the advanced security features of firewalls such as Outpost and ZoneAlarm and I do reccomend them for those reasons. Winpooch is only a suitable firewall in the context of blocking or allowing applications to access the internet.

What I am trying to decide is with my pc behind a NAT router, and Winpooch managing processes, wouldn't ZoneAlarm or Outpost be a little redundant?

[Zxian]

There might be some redundancy in the inbound protection of Outpost when you've got NAT firewall as well, but there's also the advantage of having your traffic controlled in one location. It makes it a bit easier to find your security settings.

Oh... and I've got my laptop to think about. No NAT firewalls at university for me...

The main reason that I wonder about the service configuration of Winpooch is the possible complications that arise when dealing with multiple user accounts. If you've got two user accounts, and Winpooch is running on each, will the other user's Winpooch stop your connection?

[Andromeda43]

How many open threads does it take to answer that one question.

In this very forum there is one already open on "what's your favorite Firewall".

vegettoxp,

since you didn't do the do and tell us even what OS you're using, I can only say that if you keep all the malware off'n your PC you won't need anything more than the Default firewall that comes with windows.

Of course, if you're running 98, 98/SE or ME, that's a different matter all together.

Then you'd just as well get the FREE version of ZoneAlarm and set it up and be done with it.

I install ZA, version 6 for all my customers who are too dumb or too lazy to keep their computer security software, which I give them for free, up to date and run their scans on a regular basis as I've trained them to do. I even give them a nice little booklet of instructions on how to run all the programs that I give them.

I also give them AVG 7.1 FREE (anti-virus) which updates itself and runs a full scan once every day.

At least, I don't have to worry about them getting a computer virus.

Cheers Mates!

[Jeremy]

Yeah, we install AVG Free for all our customers at our tech shop (www.mysterybyte.com) but we use Kaspersky 6 on our shop PCs since we had AVG running for over a year and Kasp found 6 viruses that were sitting there the whole time. I guess AVG is missing a few defs.

As for which thread to look at, I'd say this one we're involved in now seems to be quite informative.