In case you're still looking for the right personal firewall:
http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1750
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In case you're still looking for the right personal firewall:
http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1750
This is an excellent article. It is more detailed than what I had written- I like the comparison charts of the various firewalls that are commonly used.
It is obviously a hot topic though because the article I wrote on firewalls at the beginning of the year is one of my most read articles each week- even now- and one of my most read of all time (if not THE most read).
Here is a link to my firewall article on About.com: What Is a Firewall?
Does anyone know what is the best firewall available out there? Or are most of the firewalls a tie. I currently use Norton Personnal Firewall 2004 but I am looking for a more powerful firewall out there to secure my computers and servers.
Read the articles, they should tell you a good deal of info about what you have. Then make a decision based on that info about whether it is what you are looking for or not. It boils down to what you want. You may also want to look into an IDS. See this thread.Quote:
Originally posted here by mygbcpage
Does anyone know what is the best firewall available out there? Or are most of the firewalls a tie. I currently use Norton Personnal Firewall 2004 but I am looking for a more powerful firewall out there to secure my computers and servers.
I agree it's a good article, but I don't agree with the summary table...specifically as BlackIce seemed to be ranked a tad better than ZoneAlarm on outbound filtering. As something aimed at the home PC user I think there should have been a bias towards application control. Joe or Joan Bloggs running their home PC probably haven't got all the critical updates they need and have no fear in opening "interesting" looking programs. In my experience Blackice is very poor at outbound filtering unless the configuration is right.
Hey gpshewan , I'd be curious as to some of the experiences you have had with Blackice...I'm always looking for examples of where different products are "lacking", or how they differ from other similar products...I hardly ever hear anything other than "it sucks" or "it's the best".. those type of profound pontifications tell me exactly zilch.
Well specifically for Home concerns I'm not sure that ISS have the right approach (unless they've change it since I last used BlackIce). I'm specifically referring to application control. BlackIce by default assumes that any outbound program is something the user wants to run and allows it. Unless you're checking what programs are using your connection you will potentially miss trojans/spyware/zombies. Whereas firewalls such as Zonealarm assume nothing and up pops an advisory asking whether you want to grant the program access or not. I check my logs daily but Joe and Joan Bloggs probably won't. The advice I'd give them is if they aren't sure then don't allow it. Sure you run into issues when the Generic Host Process wants to connect to the internet to update the time...but there aren't many cases where denying program access will wreck the machine. So I'd be hard pushed to class BlackIce as a firewall - more of an IDS.Quote:
Originally posted by groovicus
Hey gpshewan , I'd be curious as to some of the experiences you have had with Blackice...I'm always looking for examples of where different products are "lacking", or how they differ from other similar products...I hardly ever hear anything other than "it sucks" or "it's the best".. those type of profound pontifications tell me exactly zilch.
i dont have a problem with zonealarm but my preference is sygate and also nortons
CYB3R.