A Good FREE Firewall

[TheBlueRaja]

Ok,
As im on a bargain hunt of late what with my Free AntiVirus thread, i thought i would start a free Firewall thread too.

I use Sygate Personal Firewall from http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm which again is absolutely scott free for home users and is the best Firewall i have found so far for nowt.

I installed this and used Nortons own security scanner to test it - now it did find a couple of open ports, but i closed them easily from within the Firewall itself with the information gained from Norton, it simply meant the port wasnt closed by default.

You can find the Norton security scanner here - http://security.symantec.com/default...d=ie&venid=sym

Let me know if you know of any better free firewalls.

[deadite66]

http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpost/
http://www.kerio.com/kpf_download.html

[Chris W]

I used to use Sygate but now i use Zone Alarm instead. IMO they are much the same, just comes down to personal preference i guess!

[TheBlueRaja]

Yeah, i used to use Zone Alarm, but had so many picky issues with it that i got shot of it.

Not tried outpost, but Keiro i have heard good things about - seems to lose a lot of features when going to the "Home" edition though.

[Mal]

I used to use sygate. I don't know if it was just that my computer was allergic to firewalls at that time, but it seemed crap. It was letting traffic out, when it said it blocked it!

[iadom]

Originally Posted by theblueraja

Ok,
As im on a bargain hunt of late what with my Free AntiVirus thread, i thought i would start a free Firewall thread too.

I use Sygate Personal Firewall from http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm which again is absolutely scott free for home users and is the best Firewall i have found so far for nowt.

I installed this and used Nortons own security scanner to test it - now it did find a couple of open ports, but i closed them easily from within the Firewall itself with the information gained from Norton, it simply meant the port wasnt closed by default.

You can find the Norton security scanner here - http://security.symantec.com/default...d=ie&venid=sym

Let me know if you know off any better free firewalls.

That is always assuming you trust Nortons own scanner, it fails to detect that I have any AV running when in fact I have a very good AV from Command/Authentium, have used it for over 8 years and never had an infection. BTW, I know you don't like ZA, but I do, it just needs a bit of tweaking, if you follow RDHW's excellent instructions you should have no problems,

[TheBlueRaja]

Originally Posted by Mal

I used to use sygate. I don't know if it was just that my computer was allergic to firewalls at that time, but it seemed crap. It was letting traffic out, when it said it blocked it!

Strange - not seen any of that i have to say, what do you use now?

Originally Posted by iadom

That is always assuming you trust Nortons own scanner, it fails to detect that I have any AV running when in fact I have a very good AV from Command/Authentium, have used it for over 8 years and never had an infection. BTW, I know you don't like ZA, but I do, it just needs a bit of tweaking, if you follow RDHW's excellent instructions you should have no problems,

Well, this all come down to how much you can trust anything really, im just using Norton as it does seem to be one of the best Firewall / AntiVirus scanners out there - most people complain about its footprint - not the fact that it lets the wrong stuff in or out. Norton Security Scanner, i assume could be on a similar level.

As for ZA, i have nothing against it other than the fact i have had problems with it in the past (and you yourself admitted it needed some tweaking) whereas Mal has had issues with Sygate and i have had to "tweak" Sygate as well to close a few more ports than are shut by default.

So it comes down to what monkeybreath says - personal preference - and as their both free, and this is a thread about free firewalls in particular then the more opinions and users of these firewalls who post the better informed we can all be about which one to choose.

[Mal]

Originally Posted by theblueraja

Strange - not seen any of that i have to say, what do you use now?

Norton Internet Security 2004, but I've got a NAT router as a firewall as well. What can I say? I'm paranoid!

NIS seems to do the job, but it's not free and takes up resources. Though after my experience with sygate, I'll be sticking with norton.

[Darren Wilson]

I use an old P2-450 as a firewall/router.

[carlingman]

Well myself due to a reformat.

I am currently using Zone Alarm Professional. (The free 15 day Trial).

As ever with ZA it is good.

I have heard that a similar firewall is kerio as someone has mentioned.