Any good firewall for gamer ?

Hi there,

I just registered on this forum, as I've been a regular reader and found here a great source of knowledge shared by everyone. This is my first post here, as I haven't found yet any answer to my issue ; please, read carefully !

I'm a hardcore online gamer (playing CS & UT in many online leagues, tourneys and so on). As a hardcore gamer, (or should I say pro gamer in that case?), I'm often a victim to many hackers, as it's kinda easy to get my IP under mirc or game servers. Also, and I guess that it's not a surprise for you, I'm the kind of guy who surfs on dangerous websites, warez sites, illegal file sharing and so forth. I've been looking for 2 years, for a good security product, firewall mainly, something light which would protect me when playing, but which would also prevent me from catching those numerous malwares.
Finding a firewall for gamer is quite hard. It's quite easy to allow whatever the firewall, to let your game access internet, the problem is, I feel like I don't "hit" my opponents as well as before with firewall disabled ; as if there was some additional lag, even if my ping is exactly the same. Some friend of mine, who works as a network administrator told me that I'm not being paranoid, the 'lag' I can feel is just the inbound/outbound packet analysis which can take some time and ressources. I used ZoneAlarm Pro and Comodo and noticed the same lag.
Although I can use some good AV with http scanner to block those malwares on dangerous sites, I'm looking for a good firewall which wouldn't change my online gaming experience. Maybe I should use inbound protection only ? Windows Firewall ?
I don't care if it's a software or a freeware, but I'd rather pick a lightweight product !

Thanks for your help !

 

You should be behind a H/W FW or Router. That would at least stealth your ports. If this PC is ONLY used for gaming and wild side surfing, all you need is a good DVD or external drive image of your HDD and you just start fresh every time you play. Then you don't care. PC Tools+ FW is free and easy to set up.

 

Ive played online games with KIS, Comodo, LooknStop, CHX-I, ESS, Jetico, and OA FW (not together of course) and they didnt seem to cause any lag for me.

If you want to be sure that you wont get lag, just use a hardware firewall, an inbound firewall (like the Windows Firewall), or a packet filter (like CHX-I).

 

Thanks to both of you, I may try that ; I heard hardware fw may affect your ping tho :/

Anyways, keep up coming if you have any other ideas!

 

Hi Mike:

You could also take a look at ghostwall. It is advertised as good for online games and the dev is someone who posts in this forum.

http://www.ghostsecurity.com/ghostwall/

 

Thanks for your advice. However, I already tried GhostSecurity fw and wasn't satisfied. Clearly the lightest fw I used so far, but it was a pain to create rules for my game (I had to create new rules everytime I join a different server, because of the changing remote ports), also, it failed at some stealth tests :|

 

A decent router with inbuilt firewall works well for games. Thats what i use. However doing it this way will also require creating rules for every game you wish to play.

 

Hello,
Windows firewall... Sygate...
Mrk

 

Look'n'Stop or PC Tools firewall.

Really low mem/cpu/throughput footprint.

The only fw I use on gaming machines.

A bit tricky to set up for rules until you learn how (compared to some of the easier ones), but it is an order of magnitude faster / less resource hungry than some other common FWs, when there is a lot of network activity being filtered.

 

Hi mike113377

CS = Counter Strike
UT = Unreal Tournament

Is that right?

There's rules for this with LNS:

CS Counter Strike
http://www.looknstop.com/En/rules/rules.htm#counterstrike

UT Unreal Tournament
http://www.looknstop.com/En/rules/rules.htm#unrealtournament2004

I'm sure the same pre-built rules exist for the other FW...
The problem seems to be elsewhere...

Hacker? Hmmmm...
Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker
and this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_definition_controversy

Having your IP address is not enough ... I can give here or elsewhere my actual IP address
and be sure that nothings will happen to my PC. This is also the case of almost every users
of Wilders Security forums too... ;-)

Thank you mike113377 for your frankness.

Nothings will protect your PC until you change your surf habits...

The effect of firewalls on internet connections are various from different FW setup and from different
brand of FW. But I guess this is not the main problem...

You ask us for product which supposed to protect you against malwares.
The most important things to do in order to find a solution is to identify what is exactly the problem.

mike113377, I don't want to be rude or unpolite with you but this is a typical PEBKAC problem.
The Problem Exist Between the Keyboard and Chair: you're the main problem here...
Read again what's you telling us:

« Security is not a product, it's a process » Bruce Schneier

Start to fix the main problem here:

Practice Safe Hex! - Browsing the Internet without protection is just plain foolish!
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/security.htm

Safe Hex - Safe Computing Tips
http://www.claymania.com/safe-hex.html

Any good firewall for gamer? A lot!

Any good firewall for pebkac? No one...

 

Thanks Climenole, however, I don't think you really got my point. As I said in the beginning, creating rules to let any application/game to connect is quite easy. Of course, I created those rules when I tried ZA/Comodo ; Still I could feel the 'lag'. Also a few players on community sites also noticed these kind of lags, and took the decision to uninstall their FW / security suite (or disable Windows firewall).
Maybe I picked my words wrong, so maybe I should clarify this. When I said that I was a victim of "hackers", is that I often noticed some DDoS / flood attacks, which a firewall would block easily.
I also talked about malwares infiltrating via http. Actually, both firewalls & AV provide that kind of protection, so I don't really need to change my surf habits. Of course, I don't use IE but firefox, install every single critical Windows Update, often check processes (disabled some services which represent a security risk), startup programs in Hijackthis ... No offence, but I didn't really learn anything with your links ! Thanks anyways !

 

Hi mike113377

Let me more accurate: you're talking about warez web sites...

If you download stuff from the "russians" , you also dowload the "gift" who comes with ... Since no AV or security protection is reliable at 100% you have an high probabilty to drop malwares in your PC...

About the lag in online games this depend on many factors including but not limited to : your real internet connection speed (always lower than advertised by ISPs) and the charge of the games servers ...

The games software update is also important. Sometimes the games servers are hard to access or simply unaccessibles if you don't keep your software up-to-date... (Ex. of this is World of Warcraft or Battle.Net)

May be the lag comes also from your graphic card / memory config.

May be you'll find more hints on a dedicated forum for online games like GameSpy for example.

Have a nice day (and great games!)

 

Thanks for your quick reply .. but if you were in my shoes and had to pick a fw, which one would you prefer ? LnS, right ? I kinda liked that one, very light and easy to masterize ... Reminded me Jetico in terms of lightness, but without the ~Snip~ pop ups

 

Hi mike113377

Since I'm identify here as "Look'n'Stop expert" , I have to take care and stay the most objective as possible...

Hmmm... I'm not in your shoes.

Go ahead! LNS have a 30 days free trial...
http://www.looknstop.com/En/index2.htm

Remember: remove completly the firewall you have presently before the installation of a new one. Use LNS with the enhanced rule set not the "standard" one.

Support in official forum here at Wilders Security ...



P.S. don't expect any protection from LNS if you download stuff from warez web sites...

 

Then just use a router and enable its "Gaming mode" if it has one. Just remember that lag can be caused by other sources such as your ISP's connection or software/hardware issues with your pc.