Computer Firewall - What are you using?

[WALLACE]

I'm using Sygate at this time, and I'm considering Mcafee firewall.
What's your preference and experience of firewalls and their performance
Wallace

 

[Erich]

I use Mcaffee at home, and I have no complaints so it must be working......

Erich

 

[Jim Wynne]

Using Zone Alarm behind a hardware firewall. Works great; I see no advantage in using a firewall you have to pay for.

 

[QualityJedi]

Software firewalls are good. Hardware firewalls are better. Combinations are the best.

If you have an old pc (p233 & 32-64 MB RAM) you can make a mechanical firewall using an open source program called Smoothwall. The "firewall pc" doesn't need a monitor or keyboard, it is 100% web managed. 100% free and based on Slackware Linux.

Internet<--->Modem<--->Smoothwall<--->Home Network Infrastructure
https://www.smoothwall.org/

Linksys also has some good mechanical firewalls build into their routers.

As for software, Mcafee Personal Firewall keeps the bad guys at bay.

Quality Jedi

 

[Marc]

I've used Tiny Firewall (software) on the PC I have here that is on the net 24/7/365 for several years now without a problem. It's also a good virus protector. A bit more complicated than McAfee and Zone Alarm, but not much. Not a resource / CPU hog. It's good. I don't use a hardware firewall - Don't need one - Tiny does fine, but I have one if I wanted to use it. Tried it for a while and didn't see it stopping anything Tiny didn't so I put it in the 'excess electronics' closet.

One thing that is neat about Tiny is there is a monitor and I can watch hack attempts in real time.

NOTE: I do not get mail with it - I use my Mac for 'work'. I do run a 'personal' server on it.

 

[WALLACE]

Sygate is giving me some concerns regarding security. It's a great firewall yet, I get the gut feeling that it's becoming stale.
I just formatted my three systems, installing XP pro sp2 (stay away from sp2); I removed it and used XP pro sp1.
I'm going to try and re-install Sygate and see where I stand.
Wallace

 

[Jim Wynne]

Sygate is giving me some concerns regarding security. It's a great firewall yet, I get the gut feeling that it's becoming stale.
I just formatted my three systems, installing XP pro sp2 (stay away from sp2); I removed it and used XP pro sp1.
I'm going to try and re-install Sygate and see where I stand.
Wallace

How did you remove SP2, unless it wasn't integrated to begin with, and in that case why would you install it? If SP2 is integrated into the XP distribution, you can't remove it.

 

[WALLACE]

How did you remove SP2, unless it wasn't integrated to begin with, and in that case why would you install it? If SP2 is integrated into the XP distribution, you can't remove it.

I removed service pack 2 easily using a neat little utility called JV 16 tools.
I formatted one of my systems a few days ago using my XP PRO sp2 version, this was an integrated package.
I happen to own an XPpro sp1 version also. I tend to format once a year due to the crap I put into my systems.
Wallace.

 

[Jim Wynne]

I removed service pack 2 easily using a neat little utility called JV 16 tools.
I formatted one of my systems a few days ago using my XP PRO sp2 version, this was an integrated package.
I happen to own an XPpro sp1 version also. I tend to format once a year due to the crap I put into my systems.
Wallace.

Lest someone reading this get the wrong idea, I'll reiterate that if SP2 is integrated into the distribution disk, it can't be removed, because SP2 replaces almost every system file (and there are thousands), and the SP1 versions of those files aren't present on the install CD. There's nothing in JV16 that will do this, because there's nothing that can do it. If, on the other hand, SP2 was installed on top of SP1 or a pre-SP1 installation, it can be uninstalled, so long as the option to be able to do so was chosen upon installation.

 

[WALLACE]

Lest someone reading this get the wrong idea, I'll reiterate that if SP2 is integrated into the distribution disk, it can't be removed, because SP2 replaces almost every system file (and there are thousands), and the SP1 versions of those files aren't present on the install CD. There's nothing in JV16 that will do this, because there's nothing that can do it. If, on the other hand, SP2 was installed on top of SP1 or a pre-SP1 installation, it can be uninstalled, so long as the option to be able to do so was chosen upon installation.

Really.
Wallace.