So what's a good firewall to use?

Thanks in advance.

What about Zone Alarm Pro 3.0?

A free one is Tiny Personal Firewall which can be downloaded from www.cnet.com.

OpenBSD and pf.

Works good for me...

For a softwar firewall, Zone Alarm (free version) [url]www.zonelabs.com[/url].  If you need a firewall and VPN, Netscreen 5XP [url]www.netscreen.com[/url].

Norton Personal Firewall is also supposed to be good, but I haven't played with it yet.

-hanko

Zonealarm- top rated, easy to config, very effective, and at a price that can't be beat- FREE!!

[8D]

Theo doesn't like me anymore. [}:D]

Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas.

I downloaded and installed Tiny Personal Firewall last night.  It seem to work good, but I don't know much about these things.  Wiseweasel02, is there any particular settings or such that I should make with Tiny?
Bill3508

If it's ICSA certified, it's good enough for me...

[url]http://www.icsalabs.com/html/communities/pcfirewalls/cert_prods.shtml[/url]

That covers:
Sygate Personal Firewall Pro
Norton Personal Firewall 2002
Tiny Personal Firewall

I used Tiny for a while, but it was causing lockups on bootup, so I switched.  I've heard nothing but good things about it from others, just personally had some issues with my machine.

You can also get a hardware firewall, if you want to offload the work from your machine onto something that's designed specifically as a firewall.  For that, check out:
[url]http://www.firewallguide.com/hardware.htm[/url]

If I could pick any hardware firewall, I'd buy the Netgear FR314.  It has stateful packet inspection, yet costs far less than most other stateful packet inspection routers.  Most cheap consumer routers just use NAT to protect you.

For more on NAT vs SPI see:
[url]http://www.homenethelp.com/router-guide/features-firewall.asp[/url]

That being said, some people run both hardware AND software firewalls, just to be extra safe.  Of course, some people wear tinfoil hats to keep out the orbital mind control lasers, so your preferred protection level may vary.

Viper Out

Tiny Personal Firewall is my personal favorite, IF you can't afford a Router as previously mentioned.

The only "trouble" with software firewalls, is that depending on the settings you choose, you have a lot of permission granting or denying in the first week of use.


I highly recommend you test your firewall by visiting this webpage: [url=http://grc.com/intro.htm]GRC.Com[/url]

This will probe your computer and report to you your vulnerabilities.  It will also suggest some fixes.

7IDL,
   Thanks for the link.  I took the various test and with Tiny it said I was in complete stealth mode(basically didn't exist).

Bill3508

Thanks for the 411.  I bought Zone Alarm 2.0 w/free upgrade to 3.0 for only $20.00 from CompUSSA.

Those shifty folks on the Zone Labs site try to fleece you for $50.00 for 3.0.

So now it's either Netgear or Linksys.

You must be doing something right.  Send me an email and tell me about it...I love geek gossip.

I have NAT through the LinkSys BEFSR81 router, as well as Zone Alarm on every machine. Call me paranoid.

[peep]

DEFINATLEY!!! Linksys, Netgear, etc.

Software based firewalls loading on your machine are a pain in the A$$.

If you have an "Always on" connection (Cable, DSL, ISDN, etc) make your life easier buy a hardware router/firewall. They are really Plug-n-Go.

I like looking at my logs and seeing all the machines trying to come in, and knowing that they aren't getting anywhere. I haven't had any issues of not being able to connect to any site from my machines.

Another plus, if you get a router/firewall/multiport hub, you can hook up more than one machine, without having to call your provider for extra IP's (and no extra costs for the IP's).

Go with a linksys or a netgear device.
Hardware is the only way to go when it comes to firewall protection.

IF you want to step up from that and want hardware VPN support and even more control over your ports and services go with a Sonicwall SOHO or a watchgaurd SOHO.

Buy a software firewall if you are lame and want to be hacked.
You need to physically segment yourself from your public side and go from there.

Get Norton Internet Security 2002 and use a Linksys router as your hardware firewall.

Works great with hi-speed, easy too configure and provides good security.

After I get the Netgear FR314 the software firewall be be gone.

Maybe I'm crazy, but the hardware "firewalls" like the LinkSys router can keep most hackers from getting in, but I think it's nice to have a software firewall too in case you already have a trojan that is trying to get out, correct? AFAIK, the LinkSys will not stop software already on your system from connecting outside, so if you really want to know which software is trying to establish a connection to the net, you need something like Zone Alarm. At least that way you can control which processes can connect outside your local network.

In fact, I believe the new LinkSys routers have some kind of interface specifically for Zone Alarm. I saw it on my LinkSys configuration page when I installed the latest BIOS.

Anyone know anything about that?