Free firewall-alternative to present zone alarm?

Simplistik

We have to be realistic here and realise that we're talking about firewalls for the average family pc.

Bearing that in mind, i do like certain aspects of the Comodo Firewall, but...

although i installed it on Windows7 as a stand-alone,
No 'Defense+' or 'GeekBuddy' for me, Thank you.
I still found it to be incredibly 'busy' with an almost constant connection between my pc and Comodo.

So i decided to play around and slightly modify my installation,
Now i know this is something that certain folk here may well frown upon, as it could be seen as lowering the security level of that product

But now my Comodo Firewall just runs as a firewall, Not as Antivirus/Malware detection, sending fingerprints back to Comodo for checking etc, but still doing its job blocking and alerting when necessary, with absolutely zero contact with Comodo and runs nice and quietly in the background, just like some of the better ones that were available for XP.

The added bonus for me is that the Comodo 'modification' allows me to also run the Windows7 firewall which i also like for its versatility in rules creation and logging.


But it would be interesting to get the OP's point of view, maybe install it and give it a go.

John_Gray

LincolnshireYokel wrote: »

Its always been a point, however, that running the firewall on the same pc you want protecting is a weak strategy. Running the firewall and virus checker on a pc with two network cards in is better, and running the firewall on a separate pc with three network cards(or built into in the router), and then the virus checker on a third pc in the DMZ is the perfect solution.

Simplistik wrote: »

We have to be realistic here and realise that we're talking about firewalls for the average family pc.

That's why businesses often have expensive devices called "security appliances", but I'm with Simplistik here.

esuhl

Notmyrealname wrote: »

ALL routers using NAT have a firewall built in. Every single one of them. No defined routing for a port, no access to computers on the LAN side...

Are you sure about that? I can't see any technical reason why a firewall would be required in order to use NAT on the switch/hub of a "router"... And I can't imagine that anyone is aware of every "router" on the market...

closed

As far as any pc connected to it is concerned, nat on all consumer routers acts as an inbound firewall, so really software firewalls on the pc aren't necessary unless the user requires notification of outbound access (which if related to an infection is a little late, AV should have picked it up, and malware can disable software firewalls).

The spi firewalls mentioned in router specs are there to defend against ddos attacks against the router amongst other things, NAT protects the pc from external access attempts, not the spi firewall in the router.

Talk of complicated solutions of multi network card pc's costing £100's/pa to run in electricity with their own firewall software is OTT for home users - A 7w router, and a free virus scanner is enough, with windows firewall and a second malware scanner (run manually) as a second line of defence. Billions of people use this kind of setup.

digp

Not free, but pretty inexpensive (£3.95) and you can upgrade to the latest version for free, by emailing support:

http://store.downloadcrew.com/p18885-webroot_internet_security_essentials_2011_3-pc

Gillor

For a good, basic review of free firewalls take a look at Gizmo's website here:

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-firewall.htm