Hi. I just found this site and wanted to pop in with a quick question. I recently moved from a dial up account to DSL and now feel like I should get a personal firewall. I'm pretty computer proficient but I'm far from a firewall expert. I've pretty much narrowed my choices to Norton PF 2003 and Sygate Pro 5.0. Just wondering what you you recommend out of the two. I keep reading conflicting reports about which one is better. I looked into Zone Alarm but have heard enough horror stories to stay away. I am looking at Norton because I am running Norton Antivirus 2003 and don't want the firewall to conflict with the A/V. I have also read that Norton is easy to set up. But on the hand Sygate seems to give me more control over rules, which I like. I've also read Sygate is a more powerful firewall. Oh one more thing, I use aol as my ISP so would need one that woks well with aol. I'm totally confused at this point and any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
I would personally prefer Sygate over Norton. I do believe Sygate is a very robust firewall. Kerio is also a strong contender. You might also take a look at Outpost. http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpost/ It is getting very good reviews, and the soon to be released verion 2, should prove to be awsome. I'm a little prejudiced as I'm a mod and beta tester at Agnitum. I know a lot of people like Norton, but I just can't stand bloated programs. There is also the issue of support, and I am not aware of any good news about Norton support on a personal level. With Sygate, at least King has put up a website, and is good about helping people. I don't know about support for Hi speed and AOL for the others. Outpost supports both, but the current version does not support ICS for 2k and XP, nor does the current version support fast user switching. Version 2 will be a completely different story. Different firewalls are better suited for some than for others. Why not try some out? Just make sure you clean out the old one before you install another.
JO, I agree with Root on his opinions of NPFW. I also agree with his choices of alternate firewalls. My personal preference is Sygate Pro. Great firewall ! Presently I'm using the latest Beta version of Zone Alarm Pro. Zone Alarm Pro has worked well for me on Win2k the past couple of months. Apart from the leftover reg entries after an uninstall of Zone Alarm, I have no problems with the latest version of ZA Pro 3.1 or the Beta version I have now. Can you tell us the " horror stories " you have heard about Zone Alarm and maybe this forum could clarify your concerns !! Regards, bill
Thanks for the great advice. I hadn't heard of Outpost until I found this site but I will definitely give it a look after reading all of the positive reviews from this forum. As for trying a couple of different firewalls out, I would love to do that but I have read that uninstalling firewalls can be a very involved process and if done incorrectly can cause a lot of problems with future installations. Since my computer is "virgin" to firewalls I wanted to install something that I could stay with and not have to deal with the hassles of uninstalling. Again, I'm just going by what I've read so if unintalling isn't that bad then I would love to give a couple of different firewalls a try. BTW I use Windows 98 so I don't know if that affects the situation. As for the Zone Alarm Pro "horror stories" I've just read in a lot of forums and reviews that ZAP is nearly impossible to uninstall, that it hogs a lot of resources, that it still has a lot of bugs, that it conflicts with Norton A/V, that it causes a lot of computer hanging and freezing, etc. Personally, I frequent a forum where a user installed ZAP because it was recommended to him and his system just fell apart. He was literally posting every hour with a new problem. When he finally gave up, after a couple of days, he couldn't completely uninstall it and everytime he tried to install another firewall he was having trouble because ZAP kept popping up. I was about to install ZAP at the same time he did but decided to wait and see how it went with him and after I saw his ordeal I decided to just stay away. Again, thanks for all the help as I am just a firewall newbie.
Not that I am any kind of expert, I am not. But I have been using Sygate free firewall for over a year and I have uninstalled it twice with no problem. I just used the uninstall in the control panel, then to clean up any registry entries, I use EasyCleaner and regcleaner to get rid of any references to Sygate. The first time was just to see if I could do it. The second time I wanted to completely uninstall the version I was using to update to the newer version and I read somewhere, I think, that it might not install if it looked like it was already installed. I don't know that for sure cause I never checked, but at any rate it didn't seem to present any particular problem uninstalling, certainly not like some other programs I have uninstalled. Just had to put in my two cents, for what its worth.
I'm not an expert either.But like imadreamer2 I use Sygate free firewall.I really like it.Pro has to have more features than the free version.The free version is cool because it has a back-trace feature!If I ever go with a Pro version,it will be Sygate definitely!
Hello Root, I am a registered user of Outpost, I do not know a lot about firewalls, but I do know that after buying Zone alarm and trying others that Outpost - as far as I am concerned - is by far the best of them all. I'm not "saying" that 'cos root is here, it's just what I believe.
Hi Wilders' folks! Ihave Ontracks System Suite 4.0. It has a firewall and in the opening screen, it say's it is powered by Sygate. Where do I look to see what version it is? Does Ontrack update the firewall when I run auto update? Do I really need another firewall? I know that there is a note on it that says it is not recommended to use other AV's or firewalls with it and I did have a problem when I installed Spybot. I informed the owner of Spybot and he said he was working on that. Have a great one!
I believe what you are getting with System suite is a very limited version of a firewall. I would at least go for Sygate 5.0 free if nothing else. Never hurts to check out what available when your in the looking mode. I have System Suite and just disabled the firewall. You definitely don't want to use two at once.
Some definitely uninstall better than others. I would still recommend trying the ones you are interested in and then decide which one suits you best. When I looked at Sygate, I had no issues with the uninstall. As for NIS/NPF, you would have to use the RNIS.exe utility after the regular uninstall to get most of the left overs. It has been too long since I looked at Outpost to comment, but as you can see from the other posts it is highly recommended. CrazyM
