Still looking for alternative to zone alarm?

martin57

Hi folks,

I am still looking for an alternative to zone alarm , twice in the past few mths it has totally blocked avg updating itself and yesterday stopped chrome from accessing the net.

No amount of tweaking or rebooting the computer and other things would resolve the problem, except to close down zone alarm, and eventually reinstalling my acronis backup image which has zone alarm working ok for now, but I do need to get rid of it.

I have tried comodo firewall but I don't like it as I have extra large fonts on win 7 and it causes errors with them, display set at 150%

Other than windows inbuilt firewall can you think of any other alternatives?

is there a freebie from pc tools?

Thanks
martin57

prowla

What's up with the built-in Windows firewall?

-TangleFoot-

If you have a NAT-capable router between you and the rest of the Internet you'll probably be fine with the default Windows one; even a half-dedicated device is better at packet filtering than a jack-of-all-trades OS.

closed

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3992261

If you really want to persist with a software firewall, go into zonealarm config, and unblock the block

martin57

closed wrote: »

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3992261

If you really want to persist with a software firewall, go into zonealarm config, and unblock the block

Thanks for replies. I have gone into the application settings on zone alarm and removed deleted its setting for the blocked prgrames (zone alarm wasn't blocking them in its application control anwyays) but it still didn't work.

One final question about windows 7 inbuilt firewall, If I install a programe that needs internet acess, or for example a trojan gets on my computer and wants to phone home, will windows built in firewall show a box saying this programe wants internet access?

TBH if it doesn't in my eyes its not much good.

Thanks again for replies.
martin57

mirrel

+1 prowla, the built-in Firewall is sufficient.

-TangleFoot-

martin57 wrote: »

...will windows built in firewall show a box saying this programe wants internet access?

Not without a little tweaking. That said, if a sufficiently advanced example of the latter were to find itself on your machine it would likely have the means to bypass the firewall without your input anyway.

Have you considered using a HIPS?

vale46_2

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

closed

have you deleted all blocks, and let it learn again?

If a trojan gets past your AV, it's probably too late, it could be coded to bypass ZA.

Outbound firewalls are more trouble than they are worth imo. Avast Free AV, malwarebytes free, and windows firewall, and your machine will run much smoother.

Simplistik

It's just a matter of opinion, of course, but i personally wouldn't be happy having no control over outgoings.
It's just amazing how much activity is going on, which most people are totally unaware of.

Apart from the usual programs / windows updating,
Others, such as Teredo tunneling
Microsoft's CEIP
Microsoft's NCSI
Acer has an interesting one called 'Silent Dispatcher'

Then of course there are the firewalls and other av products continually phoning home,
you need a firewall to stop the firewalls phoning home, lol
And all that networking / Multicast stuff.

So to identify in individual 'rogue' amongst all that crowd can be difficult.

I can see why some people have given up on outgoing control because it can get a little overwhelming to break them down and take back control.

In reality most firewalls will just see most of the above as normal 'OS chatter' and let it through, just warning when any new programs attempt access.



But to answer the OP's question about the Windows Firewall,
Great firewall, but almost non-existent alerts, in fact NO alerts for outgoing, just silently blocks.
But doesn't block everything by default.




If you intend to use the Windows firewall, then You can add more functionality by using it with
Windows 7 Firewall Control, which is basically a free add-on.
It is fairly basic, but it will give outgoing call alerts and is very light on resources.
That is probably good enough to meet your needs.

I tried one or two others, couldn't really recommend them,
but for me, Comodo is head & shoulders above all the others, but you have ruled it out, i believe.
Also, i modified my Comodo install to allow me to also run the Windows firewall.

Gillor

+1 for Windows 7 Firewall Control.

Excellent free programme giving fine grained inbound and outbound control over Windows built-in Firewall. Take a look here for a detailed review:

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

It's light and it's watertight - passes the ShieldsUp leak tests with flying colours.