ZoneAlarm Pro, Sygate Personal Firewall, or built in xp firewall?

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Please visit the Firewall experts in the Firewall newsgroup:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.windows.networking.firewall

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


| Hello.
| I am up to choose between ZoneAlarm, Sygate and built in Windows XP
| firewall. Please tell me which is taking fewer RAM resources and protects
| well.
| Tanx a lot in advance for your suggestion!
|
|

 

[ChrisM]

I don't have any experience of the others,

I don't have XP, but would not imagine that the built in firewall offers as
much protection as a 3rd party one.
Anyone that know better, please correct me below:

but I have been using ZoneAlarm(The free version) ever since I move over to
broadband at home, and would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone.
Simple to use. Good level of protection against hackers.

Don't forget some decent Anti-Virus as well...

Regards,

ChrisM

 

[Tom]

Hello.
I am up to choose between ZoneAlarm, Sygate and built in Windows XP
firewall. Please tell me which is taking fewer RAM resources and protects
well.
Tanx a lot in advance for your suggestion!

Zone Alarm, and Sygate free versions are very good, I use Zone Alarm Pro.
The one built-in XP is very good, but it only monitors incoming calls, not
anything you have on your PC that may transmit back out. There are other
versions that are free, so you may check back to see if any others here have
had expreiences with them.

 

[Steve Nielsen]

I don't have any experience of the others,

I don't have XP, but would not imagine that the built in firewall offers as
much protection as a 3rd party one.
Anyone that know better, please correct me below:

The ICF in XP only monitors incoming traffic, it will not protect you
from "yourself" so to speak.

Steve

 

[t.cruise]

The Zone Alarm free version suits my needs.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

I am up to choose between ZoneAlarm, Sygate and built in Windows XP
firewall. Please tell me which is taking fewer RAM resources and
protects well.
Tanx a lot in advance for your suggestion!

The built-in firewall has a couple of disadvantages: it only
monitors incoming traffic, doing nothing about rogue programs
trying to call home, and it is much less configurable than other
choices.

So, although the built-in firewall is OK and better than nothing,
in my view almost any other firewall is better. I have no
experience with Sygate, but others speak well of it. Personally I
use the free version of ZoneAlarm, and I'm happy with it.

 

[Doug Kanter]

I've been using ZoneAlarm for about 3 years - free version at home, Pro
version at work. Never had any problems with it, and each update just gets
better.

 

[S.Heenan]

Hello.
I am up to choose between ZoneAlarm, Sygate and built in Windows XP
firewall. Please tell me which is taking fewer RAM resources and
protects well.
Tanx a lot in advance for your suggestion!

For the "average" user, either provides good protection. I've used and
recommend both.
Kerio Personal firewall is another to try. Sygate uses the least resources
IIRC.

 

[az0000000]

Hello.
I am up to choose between ZoneAlarm, Sygate and built in Windows XP
firewall. Please tell me which is taking fewer RAM resources and protects
well.
Tanx a lot in advance for your suggestion!

 

[Allan]

-----Original Message-----
I've been using ZoneAlarm for about 3 years - free version at home, Pro
version at work. Never had any problems with it, and each update just gets
better.




I use the built in firewall for windows XP but it only

protect from things coming in. I also use zone alarm,
free version as this tells me what is coming in and
trying to get out on my computer. I use both as extra
precations.
Allan

 

[Guest]

switched to XP 3-4 months ago, had problems getting Zone Alarm installed-my ineptness prob-not program itself. I have been using Sygate without any hitches since. It all comes down to your own personal preferences.

 

[CZ]

I am up to choose between ZoneAlarm, Sygate and built in Windows XP
firewall. Please tell me which is taking fewer RAM resources and protects
well.

az:

I use the three you mentioned:
XP's ICF is the weakest overall as it only controls inbound packets.
ZA free is weak for outbound control in that it is an application gate.
Sygate is the most powerful, but requires some TCP/IP knowledge to use
completely.

ZA free is a good compromise.

 

[Steve Nielsen]

version at home, Pro


each update just gets


in Windows XP


resources and protects


protect from things coming in. I also use zone alarm,
free version as this tells me what is coming in and
trying to get out on my computer. I use both as extra
precations.
Allan

Department of Redundancy Dept.

If you are running Zone Alarm there is not only no need to use the XP
ICF but it is not recommended to do so as they may have conflicts. at
the very least you are reducing network performance for incoming traffic
by having two firewalls checking incoming packets.

Steve

 

[CZ]

If you are running Zone Alarm there is not only no need to use the XP
ICF but it is not recommended to do so as they may have conflicts.

Steve:

I disagree.
ICF is stateful, and ZA is stateless, so ICF can provide technology that ZA
lacks
This computer is currently running both ZA free and ICF without any
problems.

Have you had problems running two firewalls at the same time?

 

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

CZ skrev:

ICF is stateful, and ZA is stateless, so ICF can provide technology that ZA
lacks

What is the difference, please explain.

To connect to work I use Cisco VPN, and that includes a stateful
firewall - delivered by ZoneLabs. So they have the technology...

(but I still don't know the difference )))

 

[CZ]

ICF is stateful, and ZA is stateless, so ICF can provide technology that
ZA lacks

What is the difference, please explain.


Lars:
A stateless firewall can only drop a packet per info in that single packet.
A stateful firewall maintains a connection state table and can use
additional info to drop packets.

Examples:
1) ACK scan (aka TCP ping):
Hackers can send an ACK packet to see if an address is active.
A stateless f/w cannot drop the packet because it cannot verify if it is
part of an existing connection.
A stateful f/w can drop the packet per info in the connection state table.

2) Dynamic blocking of source address (SA) spoofing:
A stateless f/w cannot do it because it does not retain info from any
packet, a stateful f/w can use its table to verify the SA.


The above is before mktg gets involved. LinkSys started claiming SPI
(stateful packet inspection) as a feature of their routers several years
ago, and then would not clarify what the phrase meant. Tests by
knowledgeable people suggested the concept was not stateful.