windows firewall?

symy@nufc

hi all im trying to sort a m8's laptop having problems trying to turn the firewall on i get a message saying (due to an unidentified problem windows cannot display windows firewall setting)? im stuck can someone help cheers:o

HappyIdiotTalk

Try this:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/sharedaccess.htm

alikat_3

Windows firewall is dreadful & in fact is the worst firewall you could have, the best thing you can do is shut it down, honestly. Their are good freeware firewalls sygate was bought by Norton which I still use & is still available but not upgradeable, but other good ones include sunbelt kerio & jetico, zone alarm is also popular but the free version does not do well in tests, although far better than Windows which stops 0 outgoing threats.

HappyIdiotTalk

I agree. ZoneAlarm is a good choice and should make your friends laptop invisible on the internet and stop spyware ect phong home and reporting in on him. The free version doesnt have all the features of the Pro version but for most people its not a problem.

I dont actually use any virus scanning or firewall software. I do however have a good hardware firewall and I'm careful about what software I use and what I do on the internet. Sounds crazy but I've never had a problem, and I know because I do periodic checks.

Heres the link to the free version of ZoneAlarm. Assuming you had not installed Windows OneCare... which might be worth doing... I know its Microsoft and a cheek paying them to protect your PC from threats which are only possible because of their own shoddy OS... but it does a pretty comprehensive job of security and is easy to use.

http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp

wolfman

HappyIdiotTalk wrote:

I dont actually use any virus scanning or firewall software. I do however have a good hardware firewall and I'm careful about what software I use and what I do on the internet. Sounds crazy but I've never had a problem, and I know because I do periodic checks.

How can you know? A virus can be just about anything, and do just about anything. What kind of periodic checks? Unless you're not using Windows of course.

A typical hardware firewall (port blocker you get on a router) won't stop much in the way of spyware and viruses. Especially given that you simply can pickup viruses and trojans via port 80 (http).

HappyIdiotTalk

Well for starters I use Firefox and keep it up to date. This reduces the risk of picking something up off the web greatly as its more secure than Internet Explorer by far. I use GMail exclusively for email which means I'm protected from viruses transmitted by email as Google scan them for me (if anyone wants an invite PM me and I'll send one over). And I'm careful about what I download.

For checks I use TCPView from SysInternals every so often or if I think anything fishy is going on. TCPView gives you a list of open ports and the name of the program using the port. If any of my computers were compromised it would be obvious immeadiately as TCPView would go nuts... or rather my ports would.

TCPView can be downloaded here, everyone should install this, even if its just for fun:
http://www.sysinternals.com/utilities/tcpview.html

And finally I do a fresh install of XP perodically, but before I do I get a virus scanner installed and do a complete scan. So far I've not had a virus in three years.

I know that what I'm doing is risky but I've got all the stuff I wouldn't like to lose backup up and I'm prepared to take the risk. I would NOT however recommend anyone else do this. I work in IT for a living and I know the risks and what to do if it all goes peared shaped.