Firewalls

Iconic

I have just been reading the 'Protect Your PC for Free' thread that was started in 2008 and is still going strong.

Not much is mentioned about firewalls. They were considered essential with XP and earlier but now it appears they are not needed mainly because Vista and Win7 have inbuilt firewalls and also most routers have some form of firewall included. My Netgear DG834 says 'the Firewall protects your LAN against Port Scans and Denial of Service (DOS) attacks'

I have read somewhere that you should not have more than one firewall but I assume that does not apply to the router and Vista/Win7

aliEnRIK

I use comodo (May go back to pc tools firewall if comodo still doesnt allow my printer to work properly as it did last year)
You shouldnt use 2 software firewalls. A software and a hardware (router) firewall are fine

Iconic

aliEnRIK wrote: »

I use comodo (May go back to pc tools firewall if comodo still doesnt allow my printer to work properly as it did last year)
You shouldnt use 2 software firewalls. A software and a hardware (router) firewall are fine

I would be interested to know what advantages Comodo/PC tools have over the inbuilt MS firewall. I tried the Comodo firewall with Vista and found it a little intrusive so uninstalled Comodo and switched the MS one back on.

hubert_cumberdale

i dont run a filewall as its just annoying
i have a portscanning/watcher so i can monitor any incoming connections my self that way you can see exactly who is connected to your pc at any time

aliEnRIK

Iconic wrote: »

I would be interested to know what advantages Comodo/PC tools have over the inbuilt MS firewall. I tried the Comodo firewall with Vista and found it a little intrusive so uninstalled Comodo and switched the MS one back on.

I require full control of connections, which is why I dont use windows.
This site gives reviews of firewalls -
http://www.matousec.com/projects/proactive-security-challenge/results.php

How the inbuilt one is compared to them for pure security I cannot say. But im pretty sure programs that DO attack will attack windows firewall before it attacks a 3rd party one

Far as im concerned, windows firewall is fine for most users

DatabaseError

iconic, the advantage of comodo/ decent proprietary firewall over the MS one is generally better protection from outbound calls, all those "do you want this program to access the internet" messages may be intrusive, but if you ever saw something that worried you, it would be easy to click "no".
On that note, i use the firewall built into windows 7, as I trust with the security on my PC (including the ever popular firefox+noscript combo) nothing untoward should get onto it in the first place

[Deleted User]

My usual security configuration in Windows 7 x64 in addition to the firewall in my Router is:

Microsoft Security Essentials
Windows Firewall turned on
DEP enabled for all programs
UAC slider set to the highest settting

I don't have a need for anything else, it works well without pestering me.

C_Mababejive

No no no..i run Ubuntu Linux and the only firewall is that which is provided by virtue of being connected via a router.

Hammyman

Iconic wrote: »

I have read somewhere that you should not have more than one firewall but I assume that does not apply to the router and Vista/Win7

Correct. The routers firewall is the NAT service which allows many computers to share the same external IP address so unless you've created a rule to send an incoming request on a port to a specific machine, the router just ignores it.

The one on the computer sorts out all incoming and outgoing requests to it which is still a good idea on inbound as it'll block requests from malware on the LAN side of the router which would still get forwarded from the other computer.

esuhl

If I remember rightly, XP's firewall used stateful packet inspection (SPI) to block incoming packets, but did not control outgoing packets at all. Windows 7's firewall can block outgoing packets, but I think you have a more "granular" level of control with third-party applications - the ability to allow/block applications by IP address, port and protocol, etc.

I use Comodo on my Windows 7 and XP PCs, which works well in its current configuration. I had to set it up carefully (disabling Defense+ and changing to Custom mode immediately after installation) because it failed the GRC leak test when it was originally installed with the default options - a fundamental flaw in firewall design!

I haven't bothered with a firewall on my desktop Linux installations, but use iptables as a simple SPI inbound firewall on my netbook.

Iconic

Thanks for the replies. I am still not sure that the MS firewall is sufficient but judging from the poll most people don't seem to use a firewall other than already installed. However I don't know what percentage are using OS's other than MS!

I use Kerio with my XP machine with no problem but I am now thinking that I should give Comodo another go for the other machines.