Best Firewall for Internet Security

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To be honest if your not dumb when it comes to the internet and security, all you really need is Windows firewall turned on and a good hardware firewall. Which is in most if not all routers. A lot of these security programs these days are no more than bloatware that slow your system down, and bugs the **** out of you every 10 minutes, due to Firefox trying to access the Internet. If people wouldn’t run Limewire on there PC’s (as seen in the video above) and run other dangerous applications, their would really be no need for Comodo or any other software firewall.

I have Win XP in a VM here which I run on a Linux platform. I have a firewall set up to protect my Linux installation as well as a hardware firewall (router) between my computer and my broadband Internet connection. I have Comodo installed on WinXP (in the VM) because I do not trust the effectiveness of the fire wall provided by Microsoft because it only provides protection on the inbound data stream. If a phone home application manages to get itself installed, the user will have no warning that anything is going on. I used to use Zone Alarm when all it tried to be was a superb firewall. A few months ago I heard about Comodo and decided to give it a try. I have found it to be all that I had originally expected from Zone Alarm with minimal added weight. In my opinion, if you have to connect to the Internet using Windows, you should have a firewall as good as Comodo watching your connection.

“..which is like selling the disease and then charging for the cure.” Not really the best analogy, but keep in mind that OneCare is optional. If you think the noise made by the A/V vendors prior to the Vista release with the kernel changes to prevented their hacks, er, hooks, then imagine the outcry if Microsoft offered OneCare for free to all. You can use the Windows Firewall and any 3rd pary a/v desired. Security patches for the OS will always be free via Windows Updates. The added protection of OneCare is the a/v and a full fledged firewall. The bonus is a somewhat useful backup function. All the rest is already in Windows and is simply a wrapper to place around PC maintenance.

Just have your Windows Firewall turned off, and have a good firewall on your router, personally i use iptables on my Linksys WRT54G. Other software firewall are just a bore

Best Firewall for Internet Security(Chris Pirillo)

I’ve used Comodo Firewall for at least a year. It kind of reminds me of Sygate’s Personal Firewall (which I liked) before they disappeared. Comodo’s Firewall is simple (for a Novice) and flexible enough (for a Techie). I install this on pc’s I support on my own time (friends and family). I highly recommend it.

Another note. Comodo also offers free secure email certificates — a real bargain :)

Chuck

@Ernest
Not true.
Windows firewall checks what programs are trying to access the internet/external network.

A software firewall is a uneeded thing, all you need to do is be smart, use a hardware firewall, turn on Windows firewall from any apps that happen to sneak on your computer that could effect the rest of your network. It’s mostly behavior, visit sites you only know. Don’t download cracks, serials, suspicious shareware, etc.

Are svchost and installshield trying to contact microsoft? Is sun java trynig to connect to sun? Are many other programs trying to “phone home” without asking and without the user knowing what they transmit?

The answer is yes. How do I know (and stop) that? I am using a firewall (comodo)… If you don’t care, use windows built-in or only the router’s firewall.

About one-care, no thanks, firefox is keeping spyware away for me for the last years. So away that not a single spyware was ever found in my pc since I am using it. For viruses, kaspersky never lost a single one. So one-care claims that it solves a problem that I don’t have.

I have been using Comodo Firewall for 4 or 5 months now. It can be dumbed down to act like ZoneAlarm (but without the bloat…good Lord ZoneAlarm has ballooned to be a whale…) or as techie and precise as any other medium powered firewall. I like it a lot.

My mindset right now is anything except ZoneAlarm. I also had a bad experience with ZoneAlarm horking my parents computer.

A topic of great interest, being a Security Nut.

I used Zone Alarm for years, with great success (meaning literally nothing to show for it). It recently got rather large, so I tried out Comodo and Kerio.

The verdict is still in the little room with the twelve people, holed up until further notice. I can state without hesitation that it eats less system resources.

Rather than offering any concrete statements, I’m going to throw a little gasoline on the fire….

Aside from the obvious, what constitutes a good firewall?

Before you answer, think for a moment….
Perhaps a blend of native security (whatever that is), learning ability, and non-intrusivity? (I just made that up)

Look, for a moment, at Vista’s UAC. It’s a royal PITA but I definitely understand why it’s there and what it’s doing. But I’m not the problem; the problem is the rest of the non-technical computer users who don’t want to be bothered.
[Security, Shmecurity]

Unfortunately you can’t build a firewall that’s perfect out of the box. It has to learn, even if it has a bunch of built-in whitelisted programs. Since software isn’t as smart as we are yet (some of us, anyway), it has to learn from US. Given the average computer user, the battle is already lost. I pity Microsoft (in just this one area).

I like CFP’s `chatty mode’. It alerted me to the fact that NOTEPAD and Windows Explorer wanted to access the internet upon startup, for no reason I can fathom.

I can see no reason to stop testing CFP or Kerio for the moment. They both appear to do their jobs quite well, at least in this mode. Quite honestly, I can’t seem to take Windows Firewall seriously.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you find your connectivity is unwell, check to see if you’ve done a Windows update lately. Upon occasion, Windows Update has attempted to `help’ us by turning the firewall on all by itself. This is not a problem if you use Windows Firewall, but for us Serious Geeks, a firewall turning itself on when you don’t run it in the first place can lead to all sorts of annoying complications.

You have to love a helpful operating system.

I read about COMODO and installed it after uninstalling ZOne Alarm.
COMODO stopped me from getting out to the Internet with Firefox and Internet Explorer. I suppose I am dumb !
So I uninstalled COMODO and tried to reinstall ZA. No GO !?
Had to restore my computer to get back ZA that still works OK for me.
COMODO may be good but for me it was too difficult to get going.
Sorry, but I do not want to try it again.

I switched to Comodo about a year ago after ZA became too fat. Comodo is not as user friendly and can be quit confusing but, it works very well and I am pleased with it and it’s free. One day I’ll buy something from them to give back to them.

Continue to share opinions…
I’ve got Agnitum Outpost Firewall installed for 2 years on my system. Well, it’s not freeware, but the price is good for this product class. It’s a security suite with a lot of additional features: antispyware, antibanner, etc. And - tne main reason - it has great protection mechanism against attacks. Recommended to use.

I switched from using ZoneAlarm to using Comodo about 10 days ago. I think it is not the simplest program to use and I had all sorts of problems trying to use Microsoft Windows update. I found ZoneAlarm much easier to use. Surely any Firewall should come pre configured to use Microsoft/Windows update, Internet Explorer and Outlook Express.
Robin

well reading all these comment on comodo i think i should use it i have not given a try but will soon thanking you all

I have tried comodo and my windows update is working perfectly fine.

looking forward for Comodo version for Vista :)

Hi I have been using “Comodo”s firewall for 3 or 4 months with no problems on my computer.It is on 24/7,Comcast broadband .I ran a test last night and the report said I had ports 554,1755,443,and 80 open.I am now paranoid as hell.Can somebody that knows about these things tell me.What’s happening ? Steven Hogden