Firewalls

[Dapper Dan]

My question relates to differences in various Firewalls. Have had both Kerio
and ZoneAlarm and both are inter-active, asking if I want to allow/block
certain activities. However, I note no such inter-activity with the
installed Windows XP Firewall. Also, I recently replaced a network Hub with
a DLink Router that supposedly has a built-in firewall but again I see no
inter-activity. Thus the obvious question is does it make a difference
whether or not a firewall is inter-active?

 

[::Cory::]

Dapper Dan,

The XP built-in Firewall (ICF) allows this level of interaction. Make sure
the setting for it is selected.

Open the Windows Firewall properties dialog box.
Make sure it is set to "ON"
And "Dont allow exceptions" is NOT checked.
Click on the Exceptions tab at the top
Enable the option (at the bottom) for "Display a notification when Windows
Firewall Blocks a Program".

::CORY::

 

[Yves Leclerc]

My question relates to differences in various Firewalls. Have had both Kerio
and ZoneAlarm and both are inter-active, asking if I want to allow/block
certain activities. However, I note no such inter-activity with the
installed Windows XP Firewall. Also, I recently replaced a network Hub with
a DLink Router that supposedly has a built-in firewall but again I see no
inter-activity. Thus the obvious question is does it make a difference
whether or not a firewall is inter-active?

Kerio and Zone Alarm have more features than the SP2 firewall. SP2 firewall
normally will request what it should do when a program is trying to access the
Intermet (Block, unblock etc...) Most people forego this built-in firewall
for a better software package. Kerio and Zone Alarm are two popular ones.


As for the router, if you paid over $700.00 for the unit, you are just getting
a NAT (Network Address Translation) unit. NAT is very limited as a firewall
since normally only the results requests sent out will be let thorough. It
really does not block any "sending" requests that are made by "spywares"
programs, since the router only knows it was requested by on PC on its network.

A better set up is to have a software firewall (Kerio or Zone Alarm) installed
on your/all PCs while connected thru the NAT style firewalls. This way you
can monitor which programs/utilities are requesting info over the Internet.
You can then "disable" the programs/utilities you are not aware of having
installed, since these may be "spwares." (I caught several "spywares" this
way!)

 

[Rock]

My question relates to differences in various Firewalls. Have had both Kerio
and ZoneAlarm and both are inter-active, asking if I want to allow/block
certain activities. However, I note no such inter-activity with the
installed Windows XP Firewall. Also, I recently replaced a network Hub with
a DLink Router that supposedly has a built-in firewall but again I see no
inter-activity. Thus the obvious question is does it make a difference
whether or not a firewall is inter-active?

Zone alarm and Kerio are two way firewalls. They monitor and control
inbound and outbound traffic. Most of the alerts you get with them is
for outbound, where a program on your computer is trying to access the
internet.

The windows firewall and a the firewalls with NAT routers
monitor/control inbound traffic only so you won't see all those alerts.

If you have a NAT router it's still a good idea to have a 3rd party
software firewall on the system that monitors outbound as well as
inbound traffic.

 

[Dapper Dan]

Gentlemen
Many thanks for the feedback, it is appreciated. On a home network, I now
have Kerio on a laptop and a desktop and have been using the built-in XP
firewall on a new desktop. I gather I ought to uninstall the built-in
firewall and instead install Kerio on the new desktop.

Again, many thanks for your guidance.

Dan