Do I need a firewall?

Hi. This is my first post. I just installed the free 6 month subscription for Norton Antivirus. I was wondering if I needed a firewall or is the Windows firewall sufficient?

My specs are:

Windows 7 64bit
Internet Explorer 9
Sandboxie
Norton Antivirus

Thank you

 

Depends on the level of protection you want or need.

If you want to incorporate a HIPS, then no it wont be sufficient. Look towards Comodo Firewall, Online Armour, or similar.

If you have a pure inbound and outbound then yes it will suffice.

If you want more granular control then look towards Look N Stop firewall, or any of the other Windows Firewall "enhancement" programs (ie: TinyWall, Win7 FW Control, etc).

 

I downloaded and installed Comodo Firewall 64bit. Thanks again White Dragon.

 

I've been using Comodo for a while and it's been very stable. There are a number of features which harden it beyond the default settings which you may want to enable. Have a look in the Firewall Behavior Settings/Advanced section.

 

I prefer Online Armor. You could try it. It's strong.

 

Chiron's Guide is a great 'Go To' resource

 

Norton AV, I assume you have 2011 or 2012 ver., have a feature that most AVs and many firewalls don't have - Intrusion Prevention. Comodo used to have it in it's older versions and got rid of it. Norton's IPS will protect you from port scans, denial of service attacks, et.

WIN 7 firewall and Norton AV is a good combo. I also have MBAM Professional installed that runs in realtime and protects against most zero day exploits.

Actually, WIN 7 firewall for inbound protection is one of the best. Runs great in it's default configuration. Just remember that again by default, it allows all outbound. So it will fair all leak tests.

Bottom line - depends on how paranoid you are, how clean your system is, and what your personal opions are as to whether outbound firewall prorection is needed.

 

Most folks I know use the Windows 7 firewall and do not have intrusions. If you just want in-bound protection you do not need another firewall.

I use an IS so do not have the dilemma.
Jerry

 

Hello nozzle, and welcome to Wilders The first thing you should do, is use what makes you feel comfortable, as you have Comodo Firewall, I would stay with it, However you will find that there will be people here who tell you different and reasons to use other software, If you are going to listen to every comment about this and that, then you'll be changing your mind every 5seconds Theres really no need, you made a good choice, and should have a safe security on your system

 

Thanks everyone. I'm a real noob at computer security and need all the help I can get. I'll roll with Comodo and see if it suits me.

Later,
nozzle

 

I don't install much software these days. So for me Win 7 firewall is enough. No firewall with hips etc needed for a basic user. Installing bad software can and does cause problems, so beware. Then a good firewall can show things. Usually when it is too late anyways.

There is also this thing with outbound controlling firewalls that you can block important updates from user paranoia.

 

Start getting rid of Internet Explorer. Use Firefox or Chrome instead.

Regards.

 

Opera is my favorite browser. Give it a try.

 

no you don't need a firewall !!!!!!

i've been without firewall for 10 years and nobody has ever hacked my pc.
my pc only have windows firewall, and it works great with it.

good luck.

 

If your PC uses windows firewall, you have a firewall, no?
So why are you saying he doesn't need a firewall?

 

well if windows-firewall counts as a firewall then i have one but most of the time it has been DISABLED !!!
but is it possible to completely remove the windows-firewall ?
not disable it but remove it ?

 

yes, i am not at my main computer with the write up i made myself
but maybe in a few days i can get around to posting how

 

no. the best(?) you can do is stop the windows firewall service from starting.

 

The advice you have already received here is all interesting but product specific in some posts. Nothing wrong with that but I take a slightly different tack.

The value of a properly configured FW is basically giving you as the owner of your own PC control over which applications have access the www and not just grant it because they ask for it.

Most 2 way FW's have a learning mode where you run for a week or so and as applications ask for www outgoing connections you say no or yes.

All incoming should be blocked.

The windows FW on W7 can do that BUT it does assume a certain technical level of knowlege. The 3rd party products mentioned here all have learning modes and or preset rules for most common applications.

There are stickies at the top of this forum that contain a lot of learning threads. They are worth while.

 

"no. the best(?) you can do is stop the windows firewall service from starting."

this is wrong, I am writing this post from an XP computer
that has no firewall, I removed it myself as I have done many other
components, there are ways to do it with nlite or you can remove it
after you have installed windows, as I said in my previous post I am not at my main computer where I keep all my write ups I have made my self, when i can
get back to my main computer i will post how, i just don't know when i can do this because I am in the process of moving, I can tell you that you will need to go into the services and stop and the disable the service BUT that does not delete it from your system you will also need to go into the registry and delete it from there to remove it, i just can not tell you the key at this time, but if you goggle it you will most likely can find out how

 

Ok, here is the how to:

Go to Services and find "Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)"
stop this service and then disable it.

Click Start Run and type regedit in the Open: line. Click OK.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services


Scroll down the left pane, locate the service name, It may be called "SharedAccess" you can get the service name in Services when you disable it
just look at the top of the box and it will say service name, this is what it will be called in the regedit

right click it and select Delete.

Reboot the system

IMAGE YOUR SYSTEM FIRST!!!!!!