Since Sygate is being bought out (I've used Sygate for the past few years now), I was wondering if there are any other good non-rule based firewalls (preferably free) that are light on system resources?
Is Sygate light on resources? What about memory leaks? I've never used it but am more keenly interested then ever due to the Symantec take over. If I were you I would not be in a hurry to switch just because of the take over. Stick with what you got if you like it and take your time in the decision.
I thought kerio was rule based. I haven't really used 4.2, but 2.15 was rule based unless i was mistaken.
Its fairly light, atleast more so than what I tested with ZoneAlarm 5.5 a while back, I've rarely seen its CPU usage go above 8-10% at max, and I usually have RAM usage between 5-9MB, I'm considering installing the new version of ZoneAlarm and Kerio 4.xx on my test PC.
Actually, Sygate used more cpu% when I used it than any other software firewall. It ran around 2-4% all the time when just idling here. All the others ran at 0-1%. So I would have to say, no, it's not that light. Also ram use wasn't particulary light either.
2.1.5 is completely rule based yes. 4.2 also let's you do rules, however, you can, if you like, run it straight out of the box with a few predefined rules by default, and not add any of your own. 4.2 resembles ZoneAlarm more than anything else as far as that goes.. That's stretching it a little, but it's fairly easy to use and doesn't require the user to add any rules to use it.
Comp01, Try the free, very light on resources NetVeda Safety.Net and see if it have your requeriments... Regards
Kaspersky anti hacker.... -Light on resource (Mem Usage 588k - Peak Mem Usage 5,192k) on my pc. -Provides good /outbound-inbound/ protection. -'User friendly'.
I bought Look n Stop just a couple days after trialing it, and not once have I ever regretted it. Lightest on resources, best outbound protection (with the beta drivers), and easy to use.
I used Tiny Firewall 2005 Server and it don't used a lots of memory. http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/733/shot35rb.th.png
Excellent. I think every personal firewall available has now been recommended, a real help to the OP When I decided to replace Sygate on my system, I went for Netveda which it turned out wasn't behaving on my particular PC, but generally is extremely well thought of. I then tried Kerio 4.2 which I still use - an excellent choice, in my opinion. Zone Alarm is also an easy to use choice and is available free as is Sygate and all the others I've mentioned.
I will probably do some testing with the ones that have been mentioned and make my decision over time, I think so far NetVeda looks to be what I am leaning towards.
A software firewall using 8-10% of your CPU time? That would be completely unacceptable to most people I'd think? And certainly doesn't qualify as "fairly light".