firewall software

[jason]

since im getting dsl tomorrow i have to get firewall software too, so i was wondering what is the best? what is prefered? i have mcafee desktop firewall 7.5 burned on a cd that my friend game me a while back, is that program good? if not what would you recommend?

[Ben]

I use Agnitum Outpost Firewall, and, frankly, I don't think I'm ever going back to Norton or ZoneAlarm or BlackICE or any of the firewalls I've tried over the years.

[add]
Forgot: http://www.agnitum.com :o

[Coolin]

I use Kerio Personal Firewall... Probably one of the least resource intensive firewalls out there.

[DCI]

ZoneAlarm.. Works fine. :chinese2:

[sonichost.net]

Sygate Personal Firewall is also good.

http://www.sygate.com

I have a nasty problem with Zone Alarm blue screening in XP.

[Bruce]

I use Norton Personal Firewall.

It came free with my motherboard, so why not use it?

[CareBear]

I'll give a thumbs up to Sygate Personal Firewall as well :)

I doesn't work with a computer that acts as a software router though but most likely that won't be a problem.. not too many seem to anyway.

[Dean]

Trusty ADSL Modem that blocks all ports, except for ones i forward

[jason]

lol seems everyone is recommending something different. im not sure what to go with here...i just want something simple that will protect me and not take up too much memory. zonealarm seems to be what a lot of ppl use but are there problems with it? and what do firewalls do exactly? keep unwanted ppl from messing with your computer?

[Daniel]

Originally posted by Phyxisus
Trusty ADSL Modem that blocks all ports, except for ones i forward

That's not necessarily a firewall, that's NAT.

[Mandrake]

Funny... I was about to start a thread like this. I'm getting high-speed cable internet (Cox) this weekend and I was wondering what firewall software to use. Do these aforementioned ones work with cable modems as well?

[Bruce]

They'll work with any connection, dialup, cable, DSL, whatever you have.

Just use whatever you guys have available. I used to use ZoneAlarm because it's free and it got the job done. Since I got the whole Norton 2002 set for free, I just use that now.

[jason]

anyone here use zonealarm and have windows 2000 pro? i've been reading some reviews that seems there are many problems when your os is 2000 and you try and use zonealarm.

[Bruce]

I did use ZoneAlarm on 2k Pro and XP PRo as well, both without any problems.

[Gayowulf]

I use ZA on XP pro and the only problem I have with it is if my computer is left on for a couple days, zonealarm begins to use obscene amounts of memory

[Coolin]

If you want something lite and doesn't take up too much ram, ZoneAlarm isn't for you. It's got a huge UI and eats up more ram and any other firewall I know of.

[Bruce]

Originally posted by Coolin
and eats up more ram and any other firewall I know of. It only used up about 15-20MB when I used it.

[EpidemiK]

I leave my computer on 24/7 and I don't have a firewall.

[Bruce]

Originally posted by EpidemiK
I leave my computer on 24/7 and I don't have a firewall. OMG 1 w1ll h4x j00!!!!1

In all seriousness, that really isn't the brightest thing to do.

[Coolin]

Originally posted by Bruce
It only used up about 15-20MB when I used it.
Kerio Personal Firewall is only taking up 4mb right now.

[niv]

Are you guys that low on mem? :eek:

[Bruce]

Originally posted by Coolin
Kerio Personal Firewall is only taking up 4mb right now. You just gotta outdo me, eh? ;)

A little bit off topic here, but how much RAM is your explorer.exe using? Mines currently using 74MB and I'm finding that to be a bit excessive. :confused:

[Gayowulf]

my explorer is using 79,744kb
zonealarm... 35,428
Mozilla.. 21,736

I've seen zonealarm use 75000 and upwards before.

[niv]

:eek:

Win2K:
MOZILLA.EXE: 22 MB
winamp: 16 MB
aim: 9 MB
explore.exe (i usually kill off the one in caps, it has no purpose as far as I know :rolleyes: ): 4 MB

[Bruce]

Originally posted by Mahoro
Are you guys that low on mem? :eek: No, I've got plenty, but things start to add up after a while.

psp.exe - 619MB (don't even ask...)
phoenix.exe - 138MB (I should probably restart the browser about now)
explorer.exe - 74MB
svchost.exe - 49MB (5 instances, combined toal)

[niv]

...oy vey...does PSP allow for scratch disks (virtual mem)?

[Bruce]

Yes, thankfully.

[Coolin]

Paint Shop Pro takes that much???

I find it much lighter on RAM than Photoshop...

Anyway, my explorer.exe takes up ~4mb of ram.

[Bruce]

Originally posted by Coolin
Paint Shop Pro takes that much??? Depends on the size of the image. I was working on a 3000x3000 pixel image at the time.

[Fuzzylogic]

Tiny personal firewall does an excellent job as well. Not very hard to set up and i don't think its takes up lots of space either. have a look at www.tinysoftware.com

[manni]

I'm using Kerio Personal Firewall (http://www.kerio.com/us/kpf_home.html). Before I used Zone Alarm, it took huge amount of CPU time and memory.

[Akalon]

I use ZoneAlarm, I've tried others, but ZA just seems the easiest for me.

explorer.exe - 16mb
iexplore.exe - 82mb
msnmsgr.exe - 9mb
winamp.exe - 6mb
Kazaa.exe - 6mb

[The Red Guy]

A little offtopic, but how you guys know the amount of memory used for each program? Is it WinXP specific?

[Bruce]

Originally posted by The Red Guy
Is it WinXP specific? 2k as well.

[Dean]

Right click in a blank bit in your task bar, click Task Manager

[CareBear]

If you're using Win9x/ME you might try http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml . Not sure if it'll show memory usage on Win9x though.

[Bruce]

Originally posted by Phyxisus
Right click in a blank bit in your task bar, click Task Manager I prefer the 3 finger salute myself, but whatever floats your boat.

[Electromage]

I use PC-cillin (http://www.digitalriver.com/dr/v2/ec_MAIN.Entry17c?CID=0&SID=16269&SP=10007&PN=16&PID=32607&DSP=&CUR=840&PGRP=0&CACHE_ID=0) my self, it's a firewall & anti-virus!!

[sharkbyte]

well, agnitium Outpost is ok, but ive had alot of missed attacks. however, it does bloxk ads...zonealarm works great for me...also, if you have an old computer and two nic cards, you can put em' together, install Smoothwall (http://smoothwall.org) on it (22mb ISO image) it acts as a router,firewall,small VPN,Web Proxy Server,and i think more... best of all, its free!

[tandoc]

I use Kerio Personal Firewall.. used to use Tiny Personal Firewall. they seem very alike to me..

Running Xp Pro
explorer.exe - 21,775K of RAM
PERSFW (Firewall) - 6,652K of RAM
IEXPLORE.exe - 26,720K of RAM

[tandoc]

bah... i mite go get Winamp2.91 - winamp3 uses 18mb of RAM!

[Bruce]

Definitely stick with Winamp 2.x

If whips much more llama --- than 3.x does.

[notnamed]

Originally posted by Bruce
Definitely stick with Winamp 2.x

If whips much more llama --- than 3.x does.
And it loads quicker so you can whip more, faster. Er.

I, personally, love my hardware firewall.
*pats router*