Vista and Windows firewall

[Davy]

I just replace the old office machine with a new Vista based system.

Should I use Windows firewall or would Zone Alarm or another aftermarket
product be more effective?

Davy

[hoadie72]

Definitely go for a 3rd party software firewall to reduce the risk of people exploiting known security vulnerabilities.

[81stubee]

Dunno how it runs with Vista but Kaspersky seems to be pretty good.

Stu

[loanrangie]

Dont use zone alarm, it will slow your system down dramatically.

[Pedro_The_Swift]

I use Comodo, one of the few that will run on Vista 64.

[incisor]

do you all keep the bank of england's records on your home computers?

want to buy a bridge?

you need one to get the most out of microsoft's products... really you do.... but you need to run another sextillion mb of ram so you can store the bridge...

[Pedro_The_Swift]

do you all keep the bank of england's records on your home computers?
No,,
but I keep the Bank of Pedro's records there---

want to buy a bridge?
no,, why?
do I need to get over something?

you need one to get the most out of microsoft's products... really you do.... but you need to run another sextillion mb of ram so you can store the bridge...
I'm sorry I dont understand that,,,,
I need a bridge???
is it Sunday afternoon already??






;):p:p

[DiscoCam]

Hi Davy

If you have a router as part of your set up just use the firewall in that. Best time saver I ever did was uninstall Zone Alarm. Takes minutes off the boot time.

Cheers

[Ferret]

Hi Davy

If you have a router as part of your set up just use the firewall in that. Best time saver I ever did was uninstall Zone Alarm. Takes minutes off the boot time.

Cheers

You really should be using both a hardware firewall (ie the one in your router) and a software firewall.

The reason for both -

Most hardware firewalls treat traffic originating from within your PC and travelling to the outside as inherently safe. So if a bad guys does gets into your PC, say via an email you open, your router firewall will most likely not stop it transmitting your details back home. In this respect hardware firewalls are said to be 'stateless'. They have no awareness of where the data originates from.

Most software firewalls are said to be 'statefull'. A 'statefull' firewall matches incoming data with outgoing requests. They block all traffic which does not specifically originate from a request for data by you.

So if a bad guy gets in, it can not send data home unless you specifically give it permission to pass through the fire wall. Neither can an outsider enter your PC unknown to you because that data coming to you did not arise from a specific requested by you.

The best combination is when you have both the hardware and software firewalls working. The hardware firewall because it can't be attacked and the software firewall because it performs 'statefull' data inspection.

If you don't like Zone Alarm, look for another or use the Windows one.

If you want to test your firewalls you can try using Shields UP (https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2)

[29dinosaur]

Gizmo's - Best Free Firewall | Gizmo's Freeware (http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-firewall.htm)