Looking to get a Firewall

[BB81]

A free one at that.

I've had.. a share of trying some out, and unsure of which one to get to fit my needs.


I'm on a family computer, and I'm the one that does all the maintaining and updating, maintenance, and problem fixes.. And well here's the big doozy.


I'm kinda..sorta.. computer illiterate.

I know how to fix somethings, other than for that I'm -totally- lost, thankfully I have a few friends who can usually give me good sound advice.. But not on this issue...


I want a firewall that is stupid(user) friendly. Bad way to put it, but ti's the truth! Some of these programs I've looked at before are so confusing. I don't know the first thing about rules or protocals, and the user guides are usually -no- help.

I need a firewall that won't kill my bandwidth when sending and receiving files through MSN (Or a rule that will work for them)

And one that won't give me a headache each time I try to figure out what exactly ti's telling me.

I was impressed when I tried Kerio (I think I mis-spelled that), but when I had to do a factory reset on my computer (It started acting -really- funky) I was unsure if I should try it again, without coming to some place for advice, so here I am.


Just a simple firewall to protect my computer (I just got DSL and was told a firewall is a must).

I have windows xp sp2 firewall, though I've been told that's not worth much of anything.

I have Norton's Anti-Virus for a free 90 day trial, then after that I am moving to Grisoft AVG, as well as having Spywareblaster and Spybot S&D on this computer.

I just need something simple, that fits my needs as stated above.

Does -anyone- have any advice for me?

[trickyricky]

The firewall that is generally considered the "friendliest" free one is Zone Alarm. That is generally recommended when people ask for a simple yet effective firewall that doesn't need a degree in rocket science to configure and use.

However, you mention Kerio which is also an excellent firewall, which I myself use. If you have used Kerio in the past and are happy with it, you would be well-advised to continue with it as it is generally one of the best free firewalls available. If you can configure it properly and are familiar with it's interface and alerts, then I'd suggest sticking with it. Better the devil you know... ;)

[BB81]

Wow! Thanks for the fast reply..

I did enjoy Kerio, for.. the whole.. day I had it.. (I Swear I have Black Thumb for computers), but it didn't seem to give me as many problems. Which I do like.

The only problem I had, is that it totally sucked up the bandwidth on my transfer files with MSN Messenger 7.0.

I don't know the first thing about how to put in rules or protocals, and MSN Messengers help page was talking about making sure the upnp was enabled, but I couldn't find that on Kerio, so I was at a total loss.

Then the factory reset came etc etc..

I tried ZA, and it actually wasn't too use friendly to me, it seemed more of a pain than anything, or it could just be me being picky.

I'll definately look at Kerio again, thanks for the quick reply once more.

Added note: If anyone else has any more opinions, I'd be more than happy to read them. Having a good list of opinions makes it easier for me, because I don't know as much about computers as I'd like.

[trickyricky]

If you want to try another excellent free firewall, have a go with the Sygate one. Of all the ones I tried in the past year, Kerio and Sygate were my favourites. Since you're looking for a free firewall, have a trawl through the topics here since there are many on this very subject, some even pointing to other topics... it's a frequently asked question, but not one with a fixed answer since so much of it depends on personal preference.

Happy hunting.

[Tassie_Devils]

-{ Quote: "I don't know the first thing about how to put in rules or protocals, and MSN Messengers help page was talking about making sure the upnp was enabled, but I couldn't find that on Kerio, so I was at a total loss." }-

hmmm..... this is not recognised as a good thing having Upnp enabled [Universal Plug and Play or "Pray" as Steve Gibson says here (http://grc.com/default.htm) ] because of the potentially dangerous behind the back activities.

However, if you do need it to run, go to Control Panel/Services and find Universal Plug and Play, double click the entry if it's status is not 'Started', click Start.

Mine is, and I am sure many many others are, totally disabled. :)

Also, trickyricky gave very sound advice re FW's ;)

I use Kerio.

Cheers, TAS