WinXP firewall vs. other firewalls

[Judi Tousley]

Can anyone tell me how the WinXP firewall compares to others, such as
ZoneAlarm or Norton Personal Firewall? Is the protection as good with the
WinXP firewall?

Judi

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

WinXP's built-in firewall is _adequate_ at stopping incoming
attacks, and hiding your ports from probes. It doesn't give you any
alarms, or any other kind of indication, to tell you that it is
working, though. Nor is it very easily configurable. 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.


Bruce Chambers
--
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[Plato]

Can anyone tell me how the WinXP firewall compares to others, such as
ZoneAlarm or Norton Personal Firewall? Is the protection as good with the
WinXP firewall?

The Win XP firewall does exactly what a firewall was designed to do, ie
allow you to limit unwanted incoming traffic. Since the advant of
trojans/spyware that phone home, so to speak, firewalls have evolved to
also allow you to block OUTGOING traffic. Here's some to try out:

http://smb.sygate.com/free/default.php
http://www.agnitum.com/download/outpost.exe
http://download.kerio.cz/dwn/kpf2-win.exe
http://ipos.p.lodz.pl/files/zonalm26.exe

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Can anyone tell me how the WinXP firewall compares to others, such as
ZoneAlarm or Norton Personal Firewall? Is the protection as good with
the WinXP firewall?

No it's not. The XP firewall monitors incoming traffic, but does
nothing to stop spyware programs trying to call home. It also is
much less configurable than other choices.

For those reasons I recommend the free version of ZoneAlarm
instead.

 

[Guest]

Leave Norton well alone. I cannot believe how trouble a 'simple' installation could cause. For some reason, I can access my ISP but cannot then surf the Net with the Personal Firewall component of the application enabled - no matter how it is configured. Also, I have no password option as the manual says I should. To be able to use only 75% of the product for me means an instant return and a warning to others that the Norton mail-in rebate must be admission that this is a seriously defective product - despite how many "independent" reviewers uniformly repeat the manufacturer's description. Don't touch it, it and the after sales service are a total crock. Norton NPF 2003 was much better and user friendly.