Windows Firewall v Third party firewall

stevemarsh1976

Hi all

just looking for some advice on firewalls, ive recently had to turn off the router firewall as for some reason beyond what I can figure out at the moment it was effecting my ability to forward ports (whole different issue for why im posting)

anyway with this no longer active is there a better firewall I could be using than windows as im slightly concious about beinga little open now. I scan every evening at the moment with AVG but moving to Avira as it seems to have better reviews these days

but what are the recomended firewalls (ideally free) or is windows (vista) fine ?

dogmaryxx

Windows Firewall is better than no firewall, but it doesn't offer the same protection as a third-party product such as Comodo

Be sure to install firewall only as another anti virus will conflict with one you have.

stevemarsh1976

dogmaryxx wrote: »

Windows Firewall is better than no firewall, but it doesn't offer the same protection as a third-party product such as Comodo

Be sure to install firewall only as another anti virus will conflict with one you have.

yeh windows + router has always been fine but until I figure whats going on with router I wanted better pc protection...

comodo ive seen mentioned this will do the job ? do i run it in conjuction with windows or desable windows firewall ?

thanks for quick responce btw

dogmaryxx

Turn Windows firewall off to save any possible conflict.

Gillor

Try PC Tools Firewall Plus.

I have had this installed now for twelve months having previously used Zone Alarm (too many software conflicts) and Online Armor ( too many pop-ups asking me questions I couldn’t answer).

It’s light, unobtrusive with an excellent user interface - and it’s free.

I have no connection with PC tools but their other products such as Threatfire and Spyware Doctor are pretty damn good too.

Darksun

Windows Firewall provides decent levels of protection, other firewalls just offer greater customisability and the ability to log and alert you about certain events/attacks such as port scans.

Hammyman

Windows 7 firewall is as good as any commercial product.

Unless you've disabled NAT on your router, you still effectively have a firewall for incoming connections.

stevemarsh1976

Hammyman wrote: »

Windows 7 firewall is as good as any commercial product.

Unless you've disabled NAT on your router, you still effectively have a firewall for incoming connections.

ive no disabled nat just the firewall couldnt get any ports forwarded in NAT until I disabled the firewall. no doubt something im doing wrong but not figured it yet....

not using windows 7, im on vista for my sins..

cheers for all the replies

closed

Just use the windows one, and resolve your portforwarding. If your address is 192. then you are safe from port scans anyway, the router will just drop unwanted packets.

TimothyEBaldwin

Hammyman wrote: »

Windows 7 firewall is as good as any commercial product.

Many 3rd party firewalls don't support IPv6 properly which could be a major problem within 2 years.

Unless you've disabled NAT on your router, you still effectively have a firewall for incoming connections.

Not necessarily, if an attacker can get packets with a private destination IP address your router it may send them to your PCs. They might be able to do this using source routing or because there is not a router between them and your router. Or if your router supports IPv6 (and 6to4) they can attack over IPv6.