A more lightweight software Firewall than Windows Firewall. Suggestions??

It's conflicting with something or something else, poorly coded software for instance, is conflicting with it?

And about repeating things or needing to provide resource usage, like I stated earlier...

Easily based on years of real-world use of it and many 3rd party fw's.

 

Got it, thanks.

I can easily share your opinion, even if I only tried win7 internal FW for a short while (did quit using it for unintuitiveness [sp.]). Yes it seems dumb from MS but isn't it an annoyance common to too many 3rd party FWs ? Online Armor is probably the more intuitive in this domain among the ones that I tried.

 

What?

Placing a domain name in a rule does not force comms only to that domain behind a shared IP. A domain name in a rule is simply converted to an IP, and the initial connection is made to the IP, not the domain name. Only after the connection is established is a request made to the domain name in the HTTP stream.

Adding domain names in a rule is only for convenience, in case the domain changes IP.


- Stem

 

Yes, if I place the domain, then it will be translated to whatever IP address. But, the communication will only be allowed to that domain, won't it?

Or, are you saying that if I place www.wilderssecurity.com in a firewall (which will translate to the respective IP), the browser will still be able to communicate to other domains?

Which is why Windows firewall is a pain in the ass. As an example, I have to be constantly adding IPs to the firewall rules, because they keep changing. I have hundreds by now. Insane. A rule by domain would save me from this hassle.

 

Yes, which makes a rule with a domain name the same as a rule with an IP for its initial connection.

The rule itself does not force a restriction to the domain, only to the IP.

The HTTP request is made to the domain at the IP address. If the IP is shared then the HTTP request (for the domain) is going to that IP, which would then be routed to the internal named domain.

- Stem

 

Hey Firewall Expert Stem, have you any suggestions of firewalls lighter than Windows Firewall?

 

The only conceivable answer I can come up with is the software built into your hardware firewall (router). And even then that's only because it's on a separate physical box, and therefore not using your computers overhead to run it, otherwise it also would probably not be as light as Windows FW.

I see you're running XP. I think the XP FW gets an unjustified bum rap. If you're only worried about inbound protection IMO it's just fine, with the 1 reservation being that it can be terminated by malware. One day you look and realize it's disabled, even though you didn't do it. I've seen it happen to several people, including myself years ago. But if you're running XP Pro you can set up Group Policy tweaks to harden it against this, then you have a perfectly fine, light inbound only FW.

 

Your going to end up disabling it anyways so start with your security policies first. User policies and such is a forgotten feature these days.

 

Could you provide any article with recommendations?

BTW, you were right, I disabled about 6-8 network related services on my system and now I'm connecting directly on the modem (PPoE ADSL) which has firewall enabled.

 

XP firewall is worth nuts - was built in afterwards and not with same features
as same since vista.
Those are "light" cause the dont need any more - they are present.
but are they easy to understand? for me it's not comfortable.

and same as written - inbound here = router with NAT
(dial-up has not)
outbound depends on your software. in most cases its not neccessary.

"light" means "small"? or "light" on features?
Looknstop is damn small, but rich on features.
Windows 7 firewall control ist also small, but less features.

both can do a pretty nice job, w7fc is more beginners, LnS more experienced.

i dont know wfc (windows firewall control) so it may something between - its evil small

 

If you have a list of domains you want blocked, you can always add them to your HOSTS file.