Use Micrsoft's built in firewall or another retail firewall?

[Jezza]

With the concerning amount of hackers these i've been
wondering which firewall would be best to protect my
computer? If the retail firewall is better than the built
in firewall in XP, should i disable the built in firewall
and keep using the retail firewall? would they conflict
if i dont turn one of them off?

 

[adam]

in my personal oppinion they are all the same they are mearly filters
that look at the packet headers. one warning is that the firewall in
sp2 blocks incomming traffic and not outgoing.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/sp2netwk.mspx#XSLTsection130121120120

there are small tweaks that you can do to your system to protect it ones
such as diabling netbios over tcp/ip, making sure that services you
don't need are disabled and running the MBSA. Simply being up to date
with microsoft update will not keep you secure. Also securing IE will
protect you also.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/using/howto/security/settings.mspx


The only thing that a commercial firewall will give you is a guy / girl
on the phone to walk you through some problems you may have along the
line. I like the Symantec internet security as it rolls everything into
one easy to use package.



For security information from Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/default.mspx

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

The "next generation" Windows Firewall included with SP2, while
vastly superior to the original ICF in terms of visibility, usability
and configurability, is still rather lacking, as a solid security
component. It still can't supplant 3rd-party solutions, nor is it
intended to do so; rather, it's intended to complement them. And, like
the original ICF, it will not monitor out-going traffic.

WinXP's built-in firewall is _adequate_ at stopping incoming
attacks, and hiding your ports from probes. What WinXP also
does not do, is protect you from any Trojans or spyware that you (or
someone else using your computer) might download and install
inadvertently. It doesn't monitor out-going traffic at all, other
than to check for IP-spoofing, much less block (or at even ask you
about) the bad or the questionable out-going signals. It assumes that
any application you have on your hard drive is there because you want
it there, and therefore has your "permission" to access the Internet.
Further, because the ICF is a "stateful" firewall, it will also assume
that any incoming traffic that's a direct response to a Trojan's or
spyware's out-going signal is also authorized.

ZoneAlarm, Kerio, or Sygate are all much better than WinXP's
built-in firewall, and are much more easily configured, and there are
free versions of each readily available. Even the commercially
available Symantec's Norton Personal Firewall is superior by far,
although it does take a heavier toll of system performance then do
ZoneAlarm or Sygate.

SP2's Windows Firewall is intended to complement
3rd-party firewalls, so it won't hurt anything to leave it enabled
whilst using another software firewall, but it also won't do much
good, except as extra "insurance."


Bruce Chambers
--
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