Firewall change ?

I'm "thinking" of changing my ZA v.5.5.062.000 for one of these.

Outpost Free Firewall 2009 v.2725.381.687.328 Or one of COMODO's Free Firewalls, quite possibly one of the 5 versions.

The reason for choosing other than the newest versions, is because i don't want an AV included. Plus i've read that the noted versions are stable etc.

Anybody have experience with both ?

TIA

 

Is there something you don't like about ZA?

I still use v6.1.744.001 (with a router) and IMHO v6.1.744.001 is the best version of ZA ever released.

 

@Cloneranger.

Go with comodo firewall 5.10 or 5.12.
Excellent configuration options.
Not bloated like zonealarm.

Runs really well here.

Thanks.

 

ZA is still a very good firewall but if you think of changing it go with Comodo

 

Outpost Free is quite old - Comodo would be better at first sight. But Comodo... i wont use it for several reasons...

anyway - what features do you need? a pure firewall? Hips? simple Antivirus?

you should consider not to have all in one product.

 

There is no AV in the newest ZA version unless you choose the wrong package. Plus the new version near to release is even more cleaner. You have waited 10 years to change, you can wait 2 months more for the release of the latest stable 11.0 ZA without forcefield components. Always if you have something better than XP SP2.

 

As most likely 5.5, this version has several disclosed/undisclosed vulnerabilities. None of these versions should be chosen if you are concerned about vulnerabilites/bypass. I guess OP is not, otherwise he would not use such an old version.

 

Hello:

Given you seem focused on free tools and a mix of vendors one of the best combos I've used is:

The Outpost free suite and the Avast V8. Avast install first then Outpost which will detect Avast and adapt itself so as not to conflict.

Put Outpost into learning mode for a week while it builds rules. Then go into the rules to tighten them up. IE purge unneeded incoming rules.
Ensure your updaters go the specific ip's needed.


These 2 work fine in Sandboxie. If you check the Sandboxie incompatable list ZA is on that list. Maybe Fax's new version will work with Sandboxie.

 

Is there a particular way of installing outpost i should be aware of....?
I can never get outpost installed correctly.
I have downloaded and installed normally but after the reboot the computer freezes.
Is there something that needs to be done prior to the reboot please.?

I gave up on it after several attempts .
Thanks.

 

Boot into Safe Mode. Please Run the file clean.exe from Outpost folder (by default C:\Program Files\Agnitum\Outpost < your product >). Your PC will automatically reboot. Note, that clean.exe runs without any visual notification and might take some time.
http://www.agnitum.com/support/kb/article.php?id=1000159
Then try re-installing.

 

Maybe you can try this. Run the wizard post install and put the firewall in allow-all mode. Then after reboot you can use the logs to see what rules you need to setup to avoid the freeze.

When I was running Outpost 8 in Windows 7, I didn't experience any freezing but when I changed firewalls to Jetico I needed to do this to get it running.

 

Outpost Firewall 2009 free

I correctly disabled my ZA free & installed it, as the version of Comodo i was downloaded was v6, but it said v.5 on the software www ?

No doubt about it, Agnitum seem like they know what the're doing. It has an Overwhelming amount of settings/options. The GUI is friendly & logical. Intially i must have made the various settings too high, as i couldn't view ANY www's. I tinkered around until it worked, & was bombarded with Lots of popups about all sorts of things, such as OLE/DDE etc. I realise these are legit warnings, but i didn't fully understand them all. I chose not to put it in training mode, as IMO that's asking for trouble. I know you can alter things afterwards, but i don't want things happening without my permission etc first.

Here's a few impressions i made of it.

Boot time was quite a bit faster.

The event viewer in Agnitum's free version only shows blocked items. I want to see what goes out too, & where etc.

The real time logs don't show anywhere near the info that my ZA free does. Plus it only shows up to 50 alerts.

I know the Log files can be viewed manually using a text editor, but i want to see real time logs.

The Anti-Leak Control "apparently" only works, or fully, in the Pro version.

I read this in Outpost Firewall Pro Getting Started

I know it's a different version, but i "expect" it's similar in that respect ? I wouldn't want to uninstall my other Apps !

I think it's a very good FW, but @ the moment i don't have enough time to Fully learn All it's ins & outs, pun intended ! I'm guessing that Comodo will have a similar amount of learning to be done on it, so i won't be going for that either, right now anyway.

The later versions of ZA free, from what i've heard, & seen on other peoples PC's, have an annoying popup that's wants to always phone home, unless you click "Do not Send" Plus i'm not sure if they work on XP/SP2 ?

As i installed it under the control of Total Uninstall, i first did a Control Panel uninstall including reboot, followed by the TU one. TU showed almost everything had gone, except a few REG entries. I manually deleted these, the reactivated ZA. All this was done offline of course. Going online again was painless.

So far now i'm having a breather, & hope to read up etc on certain things before i embark on further FW adventures.

Thanks to ALL who commented etc

*

Initially i installed with SD active, but as it required a reboot to install a service/driver naturally it wouldn't have worked. So i rebooted & installed as above. When i rebooted i got an error message, & discovered that i needed to unblock "Protect Physical Memory" in PG. On reinstalling it worked. This "might" not be why your installed failed, but i'm posting the info just in case it helps

 

If you always believe what you hear out there then you would not use 90% of security software out there.
But indeed, no use to move to a newer ZA version on such an old SP of XP (with no security fixes since some years).

 

Is this currently in public beta? Does it work well with WSA since the forcefield component is removed?

 

My router quit on me recently, I am now running Comodo 6.1 free Firewall along with Avast 8.0 free, I tried Privatefirewall but it didn,t workout.

 

No not really.

I suspect the matter is solvable.
Come over to the OP User forum at

http://www.outpostfirewall.com/forum

and you will get this solved this is not an OP support forum.

I use the same id there as here. But there you have access to very positive and helpful moderators who don't work for the vendor. Just dedicated users.

 

yes, in beta. Good point, I have not tried it yet with WSA, so I dont know. Sorry.

 

@ fax

Hi, i realise that ZA is dear to your heart The fact that i've stayed with ZA this long isn't a slur !

There are 2 different popups that appear on a friends Vista PC. I'm not sure of the ZA version. One just after boot, & another some minutes later. I have personally seen these often, including today. There is no way, i'm aware of anyway, to prevent these. There should be a "Don't ask again" or similar option. The only option is "Do not Send" each time.

If you, or anyone else knows how to stop the popups, Please say

My version has NO such popups

 

Not really, just a software I know well and for which I see a lot of incorrect statements posted in this forum. From ZA is the main cause of climate change to ZA makes me older. Sometimes some clarity between what is normal and not normal is useful.

As already said this is not normal and not by design. You may get a pop-up after some days of use requesting to rate ZA. But not at every boot, not 2 pop-ups. The typical causes are two: Running a very old version of ZA with corrupted settings or running the system with limites user privilegies (whatever choice selected is not saved and comes back the next boot).

First you should remove ZA, run the clean up tool (clean.exe) and then install the latest version and ensure ZA has at least access to its own files.