Need firewall advice---from the people who use them

[Anonymous]

I use Windows 2000 Pro. I already have AVG Antivirus and Ad-Aware SE. I
use them regularly and keep them updated. I've was told that I need a
firewall (that I cannot afford) so I went looking for freeware. Of
course, each product's website says that they are the very best and
provide a long list of features and reasons why I should use their
freeware firewall. Their lists of features and reasons are filled with
words that I don't know.

I want to ask for opinions and suggestions from the people who actually
USE freeware firewalls.

I'm looking for a product that:
* minimizes the number of icons in the system tray. One icon or no icon
would be nice.
* runs silently in the background and doesn't try to take over my
machine or stop me from testing new freeware programs that I find on
the net.
* minimizes the number of interruptions to my work. I want the product
to block the intruders and malware---but not interrupt me several times
a day to tell me about each blocking.

Thank you for your help!

 

[tf76]

Fred Langa asked his readers what they thought and at the top was
zonealarm.
I use it.


Heres that page for you
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=173402915

Note: This is already mentioned in this newsgroup, I am not the
original finder of this useful page. With that siad I hope it helps you
:')

tf76
http://www.topfreeware.net
Best Freeware Downloads and tips to optimize your system
Member of The Freeware Revolution

 

[Ben]

I'm looking for a product that:
* minimizes the number of icons in the system tray. One icon or no icon
would be nice.
* runs silently in the background and doesn't try to take over my
machine or stop me from testing new freeware programs that I find on the
net.
* minimizes the number of interruptions to my work. I want the product
to block the intruders and malware---but not interrupt me several times
a day to tell me about each blocking.

If you're happily running without a firewall already and are only
concerned about external attacks on your system, rather than controlling
outgoing information, Ghostwall may be the firewall for you.

http://www.ghostsecurity.com/index.php?page=ghostwall

This doesn't give you any application control on what applications
access the internet etc, but assuming your system is currently
uninfected by malware ( and you are not planning on opening any
screensavers attached to emails ) then an inbound only firewall would
be just the ticket if you want minimal interruptions.

If you have decided that you want application control but have never
used a firewall before, the free version of ZoneAlarm, as already
suggested, may be the best choice for you. There are plenty of other
great freeware firewalls (old version of Kerio, Filseclab etc) but I
would hesitate to recommend most of them to someone new to using firewalls.

B

 

[elaich]

Fred Langa asked his readers what they thought and at the top was
zonealarm.

There is no firewall I have found that is less intrusive and easier to use
than Sygate. Also, it does not demand to be in contact with "home" nor is
it possibly sending information about you to Hezbollah.

 

[John]

There is no firewall I have found that is less intrusive and easier to use
than Sygate. Also, it does not demand to be in contact with "home" nor is
it possibly sending information about you to Hezbollah.

Is the Sygate firewall still available?

John.

 

[Craig]

Is the Sygate firewall still available?

John.

Yup.

http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf/summary_spf.htm

-Craig

 

[Susan Bugher]

Is the Sygate firewall still available?

http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/2006/PL2006SECURITY.php#0734-PW

Sygate Personal Firewall
Company: Sygate Technologies Inc. Author: --
(Liteware) (Registerware) (free) NOTES: last Freeware version (v 5.6)
Windows OS: Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP; Windows Server 2003
Languages: English
Description: Sygate Personal Firewall provides best of breed security in
a user friendly interface, protecting your PC from hackers, trojans and
DoS attacks. New features include full-ICS support, protocol driver
level protection, enhanced logging, and more. Sygate Personal Firewall
is the first FREE personal firewall to offer protection from malicious
code intrusions, keeping the information on your PC safe and private.
Program description:
http://www.simtel.com/product.php[url_fb_product_page]53687
download page v 5.6 (2004-10-28) [ spf.exe (9012 KB)]
http://www.simtel.com/product.download.mirrors.php?id=53687
Home page ($ware):
http://www.sygate.com/

Susan
--
Posted to alt.comp.freeware
Search alt.comp.freeware (or read it online):
http://www.google.com/advanced_group_search?q=+group:alt.comp.freeware
Pricelessware & ACF: http://www.pricelesswarehome.org
Pricelessware: http://www.pricelessware.org (not maintained)

 

[John]

Is the Sygate firewall still available?

http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/2006/PL2006SECURITY.php#0734-PW

Sygate Personal Firewall
Company: Sygate Technologies Inc. Author: --
(Liteware) (Registerware) (free) NOTES: last Freeware version (v 5.6)
Windows OS: Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP; Windows Server 2003
Languages: English
Description: Sygate Personal Firewall provides best of breed security in
a user friendly interface, protecting your PC from hackers, trojans and
DoS attacks. New features include full-ICS support, protocol driver
level protection, enhanced logging, and more. Sygate Personal Firewall
is the first FREE personal firewall to offer protection from malicious
code intrusions, keeping the information on your PC safe and private.
Program description:
http://www.simtel.com/product.php[url_fb_product_page]53687
download page v 5.6 (2004-10-28) [ spf.exe (9012 KB)]
http://www.simtel.com/product.download.mirrors.php?id=53687
Home page ($ware):
http://www.sygate.com/

Susan

Many thanks for that.

John.

 

[Susan Bugher]

John wrote:

Yup.

http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf/summary_spf.htm

download link redirects to Simtel. . .

Note - the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. . .

http://soho.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm (redirects)

<q>
Important Notice: Effective November 30th, 2005 all Sygate personal
firewall products will be discontinued. This does not affect Sygate's
Enterprise firewall and endpoint compliance products, which will still
be updated and supported.
</q>

Susan
--
Posted to alt.comp.freeware
Search alt.comp.freeware (or read it online):
http://www.google.com/advanced_group_search?q=+group:alt.comp.freeware
Pricelessware & ACF: http://www.pricelesswarehome.org
Pricelessware: http://www.pricelessware.org (not maintained)

 

[Kerodo]

Is the Sygate firewall still available?

http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/2006/PL2006SECURITY.php#0734-PW

Sygate Personal Firewall
Company: Sygate Technologies Inc. Author: --
(Liteware) (Registerware) (free) NOTES: last Freeware version (v 5.6)
Windows OS: Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP; Windows Server 2003
Languages: English
Description: Sygate Personal Firewall provides best of breed security in
a user friendly interface, protecting your PC from hackers, trojans and
DoS attacks. New features include full-ICS support, protocol driver
level protection, enhanced logging, and more. Sygate Personal Firewall
is the first FREE personal firewall to offer protection from malicious
code intrusions, keeping the information on your PC safe and private.
Program description:
http://www.simtel.com/product.php[url_fb_product_page]53687
download page v 5.6 (2004-10-28) [ spf.exe (9012 KB)]
http://www.simtel.com/product.download.mirrors.php?id=53687
Home page ($ware):
http://www.sygate.com/

Susan

Many thanks for that.

John.

Just be aware that if you use any proxy software Sygate won't handle
that properly, and will let anything slip thru without asking. For
example, if you use Avast AV which does a proxy thing on port 80 traffic
for it's web shield, then when you run Firefox, or Opera or IE, Sygate
won't ask for permission. Use any other proxy software for ad or site
filtering or whatnot and you're opening up a hole to any traffic on port
80 also. Sygate won't catch any of it at all, let's it go right thru. If
that's not a concern, then otherwise Sygate is a great choice. I used
it for years once myself.

 

[Susan Bugher]

Many thanks for that.

YW John.

Susan
--
Posted to alt.comp.freeware
Search alt.comp.freeware (or read it online):
http://www.google.com/advanced_group_search?q=+group:alt.comp.freeware
Pricelessware & ACF: http://www.pricelesswarehome.org
Pricelessware: http://www.pricelessware.org (not maintained)

 

[s|b]

Is the Sygate firewall still available?

It is, but support has been discontinued (thanks to Symantec...).

 

[Happyhooker]

I switched from zone alarm to kerio. I had zone alarm pro. I went ahead and
bought the 14.95 kerio and it works much better than Z A. never hangs up
for no reason like zone alarm did. They have a free version just like the
purchased one with fewer choices.

 

[Ron May]

I use Windows 2000 Pro. I already have AVG Antivirus and Ad-Aware SE. I
use them regularly and keep them updated. I've was told that I need a
firewall (that I cannot afford) so I went looking for freeware. Of
course, each product's website says that they are the very best and
provide a long list of features and reasons why I should use their
freeware firewall. Their lists of features and reasons are filled with
words that I don't know.

I want to ask for opinions and suggestions from the people who actually
USE freeware firewalls.

I'm looking for a product that:
* minimizes the number of icons in the system tray. One icon or no icon
would be nice.
* runs silently in the background and doesn't try to take over my
machine or stop me from testing new freeware programs that I find on
the net.
* minimizes the number of interruptions to my work. I want the product
to block the intruders and malware---but not interrupt me several times
a day to tell me about each blocking.

Thank you for your help!

You can't go wrong with any of these Pricelessware 2006 picks:

http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/2006/PL2006SECURITY.php#Firewall

I use Kerio Personal Firewall myself (XP Home, 2.7G Celeron, 512M RAM
and I'm behind a router on a cable connection, so the firewall is
mainly for OUTGOING rather than INCOMING traffic) but the other
choices have loyal users as well. ZA can use a lot of resources in
Win 98 and slower hardware. Years ago, I used KPF on a P166 laptop
with 32M RAM running Win98SE with no resource problems.

Whichever way you go, the firewall needs to "learn" what apps you want
to allow and which ones you want to block, so initially you have to
answer a lot of popups. You can (and should) generally disable alerts
about blocking incoming traffic. (Nearly all such traffic is benign,
and for the little that is NOT benign, why would I care to know about
it if the firewall is blocking it anyway.) Once things settle in
(maybe in a few days) you only get popups on new or updated software
the first time it attempts to access the internet.

 

[Ron May]

I use Kerio Personal Firewall myself

<snipped>

Should have specified v2.1.5 and not the later versions. BIG
difference between them.

 

[technomaNge]

I use Windows 2000 Pro. I already have AVG Antivirus and Ad-Aware SE. I

I want to ask for opinions and suggestions from the people who actually
USE freeware firewalls.

I use Sensive Guard on my Windows machines. Heard about it here
in acf first. Tried it, liked it better than ZA. All firewalls
have to be trained at first, ZA kept forgetting, Sensive hasn't yet.

Link: http://www.sensiveguard.com


technomaNge

 

[Lou]

<snipped>

Should have specified v2.1.5 and not the later versions. BIG
difference between them.

URL to get that version please?

Lou

 

[Ron May]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in

URL to get that version please?

Lou

It's listed on the Pricelessware link that I gave, but for convenience
sake, here are the two direct download links on that page:

http://download.kerio.com/dwn/kpf/kerio-pf-2.1.5-en-win.exe

http://download.kerio.cz/dwn/kpf/kerio-pf-2.1.5-en-win.exe

Both are working as of this morning.

Enjoy!

 

[Lou]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in


It's listed on the Pricelessware link that I gave, but for convenience
sake, here are the two direct download links on that page:

http://download.kerio.com/dwn/kpf/kerio-pf-2.1.5-en-win.exe

http://download.kerio.cz/dwn/kpf/kerio-pf-2.1.5-en-win.exe

Both are working as of this morning.

Enjoy!

Thank You

Lou

 

[Lou]

Thank You

Lou

Is there a place or group where I can check out some of the programs that
want to get out? i.e. Yahoo download manager which did not ask from firefox
when yahoo loaded but rather from the "verizon yahoo" I also have.

Lou