Firewall

[Greg Wikle]

Is the Window XP firewall adequate or would it be better to by a 3rd party
one

 

[Chris Lanier]

no, third party firewalls are more full-feartured than Windows XP's
Firewall.

 

[Marc Reynolds [MSFT]]

Hi Greg,

It depends on what you would like to do. If you just want to protect you XP
box and aren't trying to publish a protected network to the Internet the
built in Internet Connection Firewall is perfectly fine. If you have more
complicated needs, then a 3rd party firewall would be the choice.

Thanks,
Marc Reynolds
Microsoft Technical Support

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

The XP Firewall only protects against incoming attacks. If there are
messages going out from your computer, you accidentally install spyware for
example that tries contacting a server, the XP firewall would not alert you
but a third party firewall that blocks both incoming and outgoing
communications would alert you and most of the free versions of such third
party apps fall into that category.

 

[Ramesh]

As Michael Solomon said, XP's ICF blocks only incoming attacks very
effectively. However, if there is any trojan planted in the system, ICF
won't monitor it. In this case, an application based firewall such as
ZoneAlarm or Sygate would do the trick. It asks you which application you
want to allow access to the internet. So, if a trojan attempts to access the
internet (outgoing), you can easily trace it with an app based firewall.

I use XP's ICF (logging enabled) & ZoneAlarm with AVG. So far all is fine

--
Regards,
Ramesh
AOL: SRamesh2k

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Is the Window XP firewall adequate or would it be better to by a 3rd party
one

 

[Len Segal]

Greg,

DL and install ZoneAlarm (the free version). Go to www.zonelabs.com to get
it. Highly recommended to protect your system inbound and outbound. Setup
will take time to fine-tune it to do the job properly without disabling
those programs you are trying to use (all good firewalls require this type
of fine-tuning).

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Is the Window XP firewall adequate or would it be better to by a 3rd
party one

The built-in XP firewall monitors only incoming traffic, and does
nothing about outgoing traffic--for example a spyware program
trying to call home. For that reason, a third-party firewall is
better.

But no need to buy anything. The free version of ZoneAlarm works
fine.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

WinXP's built-in firewall is fine at stopping incoming attacks, and
hiding your ports from probes. It doesn't give you any alarms to tell
you that it is working, though. What WinXP also does not do, is
protect you from any Trojans or spyware that you might download and
install inadvertently. It doesn't monitor out-going traffic at all,
much less block (or at least ask you about) the bad or the
questionable out-going packets.

ZoneAlarm, Kerio, or Sygate are much better, and there are a free
versions available. Personally, I've been very happy with Symantec's
Norton Internet Security 2002 (NIS 2004 is now available), which
includes Norton AntiVirus, Norton Personal Firewall, parental
controls, privacy controls, and ad blocking. (Just the elimination of
most pop-up ads on the Internet made the price worth-while to me.)

You can compare several firewall solutions, some of them free,
here:

The DSL Zone Your Broadband Solution Source
http://thedslzone.com/Software.html


Bruce Chambers

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