wich is the best software firewall ???

Hi jupes. You said to use more than one firewall on windows? Thats about the one of the biggest mistakes one can do. There are more reasons why this is a bad idea. Let me try to explain the negative sides of what you have proposed.

1 - Two firewalls does not make you more secure. On the opposite, it makes you less secure.

2 - If you setup one firewall "CORRECTLY" then its safe enough, and its easier to administrate. Setting up 2 firewalls will cause you to lack attention on each one individually meaning that you would have 2 poorly setup firewalls which offer no real protetection. Also the thought of having 2 makes you "think" you are safer, which will cause less accuracy.

3 - Two firewalls might interefeer with each other. To maintain a firewall correctly takes some time and accuracy. But to maintain 2 firewalls is madness.

I hope that im making sense to you Jupes.

Cheers.

hey
zone alarm pro, I feel the best in my view, in commercial ones, ofcourse, the balck defender firewall is also fine.
Then coming to free ones, zone alarm the free version is fine,

I personally used zone alarm once , now using ZAP pro, which is nice.
it has many good features, I donot say, it is ultimate and i will block totally unauthorised traffic, but it is fine better than others.

instronics,

Thanks for the info. I admit I am no firewall jedi and had relied on the suggestions from the book 'Desktop Witness" which I don't have my copy here so I don't know the author. Unless I read it incorrectly (and in that case I don't deserve to have a computer!), it said that it was possible to run more than one firewall.

The book, which covers almost every aspect of securing information on a PC and I found to be excellent, describes extreme measures that can be taken when you have very valuable information (i.e. human rights workers in a totalitarian regieme) but suggests each person takes their own situation into account and only uses the level necessary. I personally don't have a need for such extreme protection but have been experimenting with some of them out of curiosity. I am therefore interested to hear if it is recommended against running more than one firewall?

I have taken some time to configure each firewall to my needs, although I must admit that I have not regularly reviewed VisNetic. What are peoples thought?

Thanks

Hi again Jupes. Indeed it is correct that one may run more than one firewall. But i do not think that this is related as in running 2 software firewalls on 1 computer. The word firewall may consist of many different types and kinds. One of these kinds is a simple software firewall. Other kinds consist of 2 routers, a bastion Host, and a proxy server (aka application level firewalls). I think that when you read the part with 2 firewalls it was refered to a network. An example:


<your-client-with-firewall> <----> <internet>

or

<your-client-> <----> <firewall> <-----> <internet>

Where the <firewall> is a dedicated hardware firewall, or just a computer running one.

or a more complex way.

<your-client> <--> <interior-router> <--> <Bastion-Host> <--> <exterior-router> <--> <internet>

Where by the 2 routers in combination with the bastion host are 1 large firewall setup ;)

or what i think you meant

<your-client-with-firewall> <----> <firewall> <----> <internet>


As you see there are many things called firewall. To run 2 software firewalls of one computer is nonsense. If you would like a deeper insight on firewalling (which by the way is a very good and interesting read) then i would recomend a book called "Building internet firewalls 2nd edition" by Oreilly www.oreilly.com .

Thats a great book which will cover *nix aswell as windows systems. Do not let the size or the price of the book scare you, its an excellent read.

Good luck :)

Cheers.

instronics

Thanks for the further pointers. I guess my understanding is a little off and I need to do some further reading. :)

cheers

Jupes

I have to agree with Vigge. Sygate is my personal choice. I think it has a very friendly interface, pretty easy to configure, and is very good at letting you know who and where your computer is connecting to. Some of the options are greyed out with the freeware, but you can upgrade. I think it might be a good idea to get your feet wet with a couple different FW, and then decide on your own which works best for you and what you are doing.

for me i have no favorate firewalls right now theres trojan dat able to destroy any anti virus and firewall just be aware of everything u do on the net



peace

Dwien....what are you talking about? Theres no such thing as a trojan that will destroy any AV and/or firewall. LOL, where do you get that information from?

I believe Dwien is referring to the fact that some of the recent virus threats have contained the ability to search out known personal firewall and antivirus software and delete their executables and shut down their services as a facet of the virus attack.

I also like Zone Alarm and use that on my home computers.

instronics:::: dats wat i do, hack computers! but 4 only good purposes.
tonybradley is correct there are tons of trojans and virus' out there more sophiscated then any anti-virus or firewall.

peace

if you want some sample just ask me ill post some K.


Peace