Firewalls

[prodikal]

i would definetly recomend agnitum outpost it haz a lot of plugins updates etc and its simple 2 configure and blocks a lot of attacks and tells u what attacks r being sent 2 u r box it really is a good software firewall ZA is ok i guess but agnitum is really good and stable if r thinking about changing firewalls u should definetly give agnitum outpost a try

[Syini666]

another decent free one is Tiny Personal Firewall, tough im a recent Outpost convert as well, esp with the logging and ad-blocking.

[destined 2 fail]

hmmm i have never heard of outpost, but i am very interested and am downloading it as i type this..thanks for the link remote_access. it sounds pretty badass

[khakisrule]

Well, you could probably buy some crappy 486 for less than $100 and make a hardware firewall buy putting a *nix distro on it and customizing a firewall. I have heard a lot about OpenBSD being used like this. This option is cheap and very stable, I reccomend you look into it.

And I use a minimum installation of mandrake on and old 486 that my sister got. It isn't worth much, less than $100. And my firewall is loaded onto a floppy disk that is put in to the 486 at boot. The floppy loads and thus the hardware firewall that protects my computer.

[specs]

Firewalls for windows. What an oxymoron.

As a typical internet user with windows 98, one wouldn't have the need for a firewall or packet filtering software of some kind. Sure, you might have a couple DoS's coming your way, but only because you most likely deserved through your actions.

Angrybob has it right. (Most of the *nix o/s's ship with packet filtering software)

[AngryBob]

sorry about my post...i had two screens open and wrote on the wrong one. and i got hammered for it so i learned my lesson about paying more attention. incidently i like blackice because its not as obnoxious as zonealarm.

[InsaneData]

Thank you for all the wonderfull replies. So far I really like "outpost" however some of you talk about properly configuring the firewall, and what do you mean by that? How can you properly configure it so its more effective?

Thanks,
Insane

[eeshman]

As for configuring...I'm not too sure about Outpost because I've never used it but I personally go by the "deny-all" method of firewalling. That is to block all incoming traffic and start from there. If there is a certain service that needs access to your machine than allow only that service and start from there. Also allow only certain programs and services access to the outside world so as to make your presence on the net not as loud. Outpost's site has a downloadable manual in .pdf format, I'd start there for instructions on how to configure your firewall. Not sure but it might come with some security levels with matching firewall rules for you to choose from. Again, not speaking from experience with Outpost. Hope this helps.

-the eeshman