I need a firewall

Hello!

I have an older desktop PC (Intel P4 @ 3 GHz, 1 GB RAM, Windows XP Pro) and am using it for various purposes, but the thing is that I need to keep the security (and everything else) as light as possbile on system resources, because I need them for recording & mixing music. I'm already using Avast!'s Free AV and Sandboxie + some on-demand-only programs which don't use system resources all the time of course.

So, I'm looking for a free, easy to use, no (or minimal) registration nagging, 2-way firewall that will do it's job properly and will be very light on resources and nicely play along with Avast & Sandboxie.

Here's the list of free firewalls I've read good things about:
Privatefirewall
Kerio 2.1.5
Softperfect
Sunbelt
Looknstop
Outpost
Zone alarm
Online armor
Comodo

Which one of this do you think would be the right one for me? Thank you!

 

You could try Avast with outpost free. Avast is the lightest AV I've seen. I've used it in old machines that are less than 1Ghz and it's excellent. You just install only the AV component.

 

comodo firewall alone (D+ disabled in my case) is a nice decent firewall thats pretty light on my system resources from what ive seen.

if ur looking for straightforward firewall, outpost, comodo, and PCTools Firewall are the only 3 id consider personally (all of them with their HIPS components disabled of course since i dont need HIPS)

 

Can you tell me how much memory does Comodo use and how much Outpost? And how do I disable HIPS and D+ etc.? Thank you!

 

not using outpost atm so cant tell u exactly (think it was aprox 20mb when i did use it, but i could be wrong)

but Comodo firewall alone (D+ disabled) uses about 8-8.5mb for cfp.exe and about 3.5-6.5mb for cmdagent.exe with CPU timing almost non existant (btw this is with utorrent running so these might be higher than wen just browsing) and IO read/write is almost non-existant as well

 

I've had Online Armor (free and paid) running merrily on an old PentiumM 1.6GHz, 1GB, XPPro laptop for almost 2 years and without any problems with Avast (or any AV).
(I don't do any latency-sensitive work on it though so I've no idea how OA might be an influence there).

 

Hi Bellzemos,

unfortunatelly there is no free version of Look'n'Stop Firewall. You have only 30-days trial.
But - from the list you put in your post it's one of the lightest fw (next to kerio 2.1.5) on the market. Please note that kerio is in old version, LnS is still under developement.

Maybe this thread will be also helpful for you.

 

Your thread with tests is very interesting!

I've looked at Matousec tests and Look'n'Stop Firewall got only 15%.

Do you think that it's a good idea to use it?

And thank you all for your help!

 

Thanks and you are welcome.

About Matousec LnS result, please read this thread.

If you are looking for pure firewall without addons (like i.e. HIPS or smth-shield) - then I think Yes, LnS is a very good idea to use it.

There are few reviews LnS if you are looking for it in popular search engine, eg. http://www.brighthub.com/computing/smb-security/reviews/36598.aspx

HTH

 

Search for & read other Wilders threads about Matousec's so-called tests. His tests evaluate mainly HIPS capabilities, rather than firewalls. Look'n'Stop is a pure firewall, NOT a HIPS. Therefore Matousec's test of Look'n'Stop is inept, unprofessional, & possibly extortionary (he charges $$ for his recommended apps.)

Matousec's tests are mainly leak tests, which only apply, if at all, when all of your other security fails & thereby allows malware to get into your system in the first place.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile -- back on topic -- I heartily recommend Private Firewall. It's free. Light on resources. Rock stable. Super-good, friendly, effective support. Best of all, it encompasses 3 main components: firewall, HIPS, & anomaly detection. The anomaly detection is unique to PFW. This 3-way layer of security methods provides excellent protection.

Another good choice -- NOT free -- is OnlineArmor Premium. The added protection you get with OA Premium, versus OA's free version, is well worth the $$.

 

How familiar are you with creating FW rules? I ask because these products impose different levels of pop-ups asking the users to decide to allow or deny.

Ignore to matouse tests as they are paid for by vendors and have zip to do with firewalls anyway.

Pick OA or OP free and see how you like them.

 

@ Creer: I also like LnS, it seems such a nice little program, Commodo Firewall seems like a big monster to me. I'm new to firewalls.

@ bellgamin: I'm thinking a lot about Privatefirewall... Can you tell me how much memory does it need to run? And can I disable HIPS and only enable firewall?

@ Escalader: I'm very unfamiliar with creating FW rules, I've only used XP firewall in my life. So which FW do you suggest for me?

I have somehow narrowed my firewall list to these four:

Privatefirewall - it's free and has everything and more.

Looknstop - it's very light on resources and I need a FW that's really light.

Outpost Free - was suggested to me by many people, but noone told me how much memory does it need.

Comodo Free - it's said to be the best one, but I'm afraid that it will eat all my memory.

Please help me more and THANK YOU really for all the help as I'm really new to the FW world.

 

On just about every computer I've put Avast on, it's taken a hit in performance and dragged it down a bit. I only recommend it as an IT Tech to people that don't have system performance issues with it, if they do, it's better to use Avira.

Comodo's Free Firewall is really hard to beat, or Online Armor...

I personally like Comodo...

 

Outpost FW Pro w7 (not free) takes about 32,000 k on my box.

It will require you to learn something about rules.

Read the intro stickies at the top of this forum to give yourself a glimpse of rule making.

You can save some memory by disabling windows services you don't need. Are you up for that?

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm


Start on this carefully, 1 service off per day. Make it manual first to be safe. If that works, make it disabled.

 

There is a planned outpost 7.0 freeware to come out, what day or week I could not tell you

 

Here is a screenshot of PFW's usage of Working Set memory (Ram) as well as cpu usage & some other stats. It is very light, as you can see. (In just under 3 hours of computer run time, PFW has used just over 20 seconds of cpu time.)




PFW's Process Monitor is its HIPS, as shown. Yes, you can turn it off -- just move the slider to Off. (As you can see I have it set to HIGH, & shall continue to do so. It has saved my computer's groin area on more than one occasion.)




Look'n'Stop is a hair lighter than PFW & has a very active support forum right here at Wilders. Its prime developer Frederic was mysteriously missing for quite a while, but now seems to have finally turned up -- but still not yet back on board. I hope he is okay & is able to put to rest whatever issues he has had to face.

 

LnS has a free counterpart. After the trial expires I believe application filtering is disabled.

 

AFAIK - after free period, L'n'S only filters INBOUND, no outbound. That is not very useful. Window's own built-in FW will do a better job for BOTH inbound and outbound.

 

You're recording & mixing music and you think you need a firewall other then what Windows gives you why?

I'm sorry but to many people on this forum promotes to much paranoia and the idea that you need a bunch of applications on the computer when it isn't true.

I work as an IT Tech and none of my small home users have a firewall on their computers for personal and even small home business usage and not one of them ever has had a problem. All they use is the Windows firewall.

Unless you think people are out to get you, even then a cracker knows you are running a personal home IP address and typically isn't going to bother hacking you, they're after the bigger fish, more of the business IPs, it's usually just the kiddies messing with home users...

95% percent of Home users are safe just running the Windows firewall.

Forget about software firewalls, got out and spend a big $50 and buy a small hardware firewall, by either Linksys, Dlink, or Netgear...

This Netgear is a pretty decent inexpensive firewall; (Stateful packet inspection and nat)

http://www.netgear.com/products/home/wirelessouters/simplesharing/WGR614.aspx

 

what do u mean? i already posted its memory usage which arent really high

 

I see where you're coming from, but in this case using Win's internal FW is a bit risky.

OP is running WinXP. Its built-in firewall covers inbound ONLY. No coverage of outbound.

Outbound protection is essential for protection against keyloggers. Even if a keylogger somehow sneaks in, it cannot do any harm if it cannot connect out to call home with the data it has stolen.

A malware infection is an inconvenience. A successful keylogger identity theft can be outright disaster. A firewall that protects outbound connections is an essential last bastion of defense against keyloggers -- THE greatest security threat IMO.

 

That's a bold claim to make. A long as keyloggers aren't installed, there's nothing to filter anyway, which could spark a a debate on your statement. However, I will support the claim outbound filtering firewalls might (and most likely will) keep keylogger or similar traffic at bay, even though there are those who will stand on their pedestals and authoritatively ordain "outbound filtering firewalls are useless". I use outbound filtering with Win7's built-in firewall, not only for the possibility of a keylogger or such infiltrating my pc, but mainly for restricting traffic on all my installed programs to only exactly what is needed, just because I can, and also because I know first-hand what svchost.exe, for example, likes to do when given free reign.

 

FWIW, I agree 100% with this post!

In time I'm going the same route.

With Win 7 two way FW and the capacity to set it up as you have done I see no need anymore for 3rd party FW's.

I seem to recall you posted your svchost.exe rule set

If so can you link to it for me?

For Windows 7 svchost seems even more pervasive than in xp.

 

Personally I feel that Outbound protection is essential. A few years ago I visited the Peugeot homepage and browsed around. Little did I know but the FTP credentials had been compromised and the website was hacked- so when I clicked on to see a particular (popular) auto I also downloaded malware! This was caught by a timely popup from LNS. I was then able to track down the culprit and purge the system.

As to Inbound protection I seriously wonder if any give better protection than Windows Firewall, especially if a router is involved; and anyway how can one personally test which firewall is better than another for inbound protection? Guess we must take it on faith.

 

i wish i could still use LnS firewall since at the time i did use it, it was and still is my fav, but its just too advanced for my knowledge of firewalls, rule making and understanding things like that was just too much for personally. i remember that was my biggest issue with it because at the time i had an issue with CoD4 not being able to see the server list because LnS was blocking it, and since i barely understood all the rules that were coming in, i didnt know which to allow or how to create a rule for it to be allowed

def not a firewall for begginers, if they wer to release a new version that let u choose to be solely in application based mode, id def jump back to LnS