IS PC Tools free firewall any good

[cruser921]

HI was curious i ran into PC Tools Free Firewall surfing the web today and was wondering if it is any good it currently is in version 4 with a 5 on the whey. I'm looking for a good free firewall other then comodo as i bad experience with there firewall. I saw this one and it looks good anyone use it?

[Woody777]

Yes, its a Good Firewall. Runs very light. You can tell it to use Statefull Packet Inspection. It will allow proxys also.

[twl845]

Brought to you by Symantec. :what:

[cruser921]

-{ Quote: "Yes, its a Good Firewall. Runs very light. You can tell it to use Statefull Packet Inspection. It will allow proxys also." }-

sounds good guys ill check it out just need it for outbound stuff as inbound is covered by my router. but i like to know what is going out :). which one should i use the curent version 4 or the beta ?

[wtsinnc]

cruser921;

The link is to the PC Tools forums; it gives details about the new version 5 firewall which I'm using on one of my Windows XP installs and I have also used it with Vista Ultimate. I find it to be a solid and relatively lightweight firewall and believe you will like it.

http://www.pctools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=54232

[cruser921]

-{ Quote: "cruser921;

The link is to the PC Tools forums; it gives details about the new version 5 firewall which I'm using on one of my Windows XP installs and I have also used it with Vista Ultimate. I find it to be a solid and relatively lightweight firewall and believe you will like it.

http://www.pctools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=54232" }-

Thanks will hop over there and check it out :)

[chris2busy]

heh.the above link is for PC Tools Antivirus v5 beta :) for the firewall v5 beta please proceed to

http://www.pctools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=54178

[Saraceno]

Personally, I think it's a very good firewall.

If leaktests are your thing, the new version passes level 10 on matousec (http://www.matousec.com/projects/firewall-challenge/results.php)'s site. Basically it will not only just alert you for incoming/outgoing connections, but any suspicious application behaviour.

:)

[Fuzzfas]

PC Tools firewall is very light on resources and one of the few that don't cut down at all your internet speed (confirmed by Matousec in TCP and UDP perf test). Also the enhanced security now gives more protection , as seen in Matousec's firewall challege. Unfortunately though, on my pc it causes crashes , so i had to disable it.

But it's in the right path. And in the league of lightweight firewalls , it's a champion.

[chris2busy]

i reccomend it as well for Vista...light and enhanced security verification didn't cause any trouble for me :) cheers

[Saraceno]

Enhanced security verification had no problems for me either (Vista).

Another user posted an article on leak tests in this thread (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=224166).

Has some good info, such as:

-{ Quote: "To generalize, leaktests will try to emulate one of the following techniques:

Impersonating a legitimate application installed on a computer or leveraging its access credentials to send information to the Internet (i.e., spoofing, trusted application launch with special parameters)
Interacting with a legitimate application using embedded Windows controls such as OLE Automation or DDE requests
Modifying active applications in memory, attaching malicious components to benign applications – for example, component injection, direct memory patching, creation of malicious threads
Using trusted network services and protocols to send unauthorized data in the hope that the firewall will miss the unconventional activity; such activities might include false DNS requests, BITS service exploitation, or lax ICMP filtering
Installing a new network adapter driver through which to route data
Disrupting or disabling the protective functions of an installed security application
Initiating system shutdown to check if the firewall monitors the activity of untrusted processes through to its completion
Intercepting keystrokes
" }-

[cruser921]

ok so i should use the v5 beta instead of the current v4 as the beta is a better version :).

[tipstir]

-{ Quote: "ok so i should use the v5 beta instead of the current v4 as the beta is a better version :)." }-

Find 3.14 is stable and faster than 4.xx 5. is beta has bugs...

[Escalader]

-{ Quote: "HI was curious i ran into PC Tools Free Firewall surfing the web today and was wondering if it is any good it currently is in version 4 with a 5 on the whey. I'm looking for a good free firewall other then comodo as i bad experience with there firewall. I saw this one and it looks good anyone use it?" }-

Well users get what they pay for.

What is mean by "any good" ?
Have you read the stickies here on Firewalls?
What FW's are do and the criteria they should meet?

If not then you will be blown from pillar to post by experts here touting their selections which may be fine for them but not for you.

Read and study the learning threads here first before choosing one.

[cruser921]

i got ride of it as i found out my router has SPI.Nat built in and it wa a redundant process.

[Escalader]

-{ Quote: "i got ride of it as i found out my router has SPI.Nat built in and it wa a redundant process." }-

What that means is you have no outbound control over what applications connect to the www and which ip they use for updating.

You appear not to be concerned with your own privacy?

A router is good but it only filters incoming packets.

Suggest you rethink this matter;D

[gery]

definitely you need a firewall

[firzen771]

beta 5 of pc tools firewall i find to be very good, pc tools firewall is one of my fav firewalls, pc tools firewall and comodo firewall would be my suggestions.

[gery]

I had PC TOOLS FIREWALL 5 in my laptop but comparing it to ZA pro it is heavier and it caused slow browsing . As far as protection i think it is very well protecting a machine]

[firzen771]

-{ Quote: "I had PC TOOLS FIREWALL 5 in my laptop but comparing it to ZA pro it is heavier and it caused slow browsing . As far as protection i think it is very well protecting a machine]" }-

really? thats weird on a clean PC ZA was also quite heavy on resources and slowed browsing much more than pc tools, hmm maybe just me. ive never personally liked ZA firewalls, they always seem to be a bit too bloated for my taste.

[gery]

What do you mean bloated? it is a legend. It os not heavy and really fast browsing and goes very well with Avg paid.

[firzen771]

well last time i tried ZA it sure wasnt, i think it was ver. 7 or somethin

[nhamilton]

-{ Quote: "PC Tools firewall is very light on resources and one of the few that don't cut down at all your internet speed (confirmed by Matousec in TCP and UDP perf test). Also the enhanced security now gives more protection , as seen in Matousec's firewall challege. Unfortunately though, on my pc it causes crashes , so i had to disable it.

But it's in the right path. And in the league of lightweight firewalls , it's a champion." }-

PCtools have released a new beta v5.0.0.25 that is meant to fix the problems they had with the enhanced security option.

http://www.pctools.com/forum/showthread.php?p=195512#post195512

[doktornotor]

-{ Quote: "PCtools have released a new beta v5.0.0.25 that is meant to fix the problems they had with the enhanced security option.

http://www.pctools.com/forum/showthread.php?p=195512#post195512" }-

It actually made those issues lot worse for me, had to uninstall PCT FW 5.0.0.25 in safe mode, otherwise logging in resulted in a frozen system, couldn't even get far enough to be able to disable it in configuration, unlike with .19.

The ESV features is plain broken and should be disabled by default.

EDIT: Scratch the above. Nice waste of time with reinstalling the old .19 version - because providing installers with filename reflecting the version is apparently too difficult for some vendors so you end up downloading outdated stuff from outdated mirrors... :thumbd: >:( :wacko:

Don't feel like messing with this any time soon again. Grrrr.