I need your opinion!

Hi friends!
At first, sorry for my English. I know it's bad.
I am a novice user in the computer's world. I use an old and slow pc, under WinXp Home edition. I need a good compination of firewall and antivirus. The only restriction i set is, as possible low resources.

Thanks for your understanding!

 

Hi Green Dragon and welcome to Wilders!

You're English is fine.

My list of low resource AV's are:

• NOD32
• F-Prot
• Dr. Web

For firewall's I'd probably list:

• LooknStop
• Kerio 2.15 (see download link at top of forum page)

I'm not resource limited, so of all the programs that I've listed, NOD32 is the only one I currently run and I do highly recommend it. From what I've seen, all the other options listed do get good reviews from current users. Naturally, until you get a separate firewall application, by all means use XP's ICF.

Blue

 

If it were me i would suggest Mcafee virus scan enterprise 8 (if you can get your hands on it) ask your college or university if you study at either?.

This has the best!!! scanning abilites for not just viruses but trojans and malware only equaled by kaspersky. It is also the lightest on my machine i have tried several and nothing compare to this light footprint.

The two best firewalls i have tried are outpost and secondly EZ firewall.

Word or advice i had tried Looknstop and it completely messed my system up i had to take the machine in to the computer store to be repaired and a full system recovery had to be done to fix it.

Hope this is some help
Anthony

 

I suggest to use Kaspersky Antivirus pro 5.0.20 and agnitum outpost pro 2.5.
McAfee Virusscan Enterprise 8.0i and desktop firewall 8.0 will be better choices for slow computers if you have a chance to use them.

 

Just to indirectly expand on Anthony's comment...,

It's very useful to get a firm sense of what users are posting with respect to any program that you are considering. Be aware that in many cases posts will reflect users coming to grips with problems encountered. You will also frequently see dramatically opposite experiences described. Although it is sometime hard to understand how one user could consider a program as an absolute marvel while another may label it worse than the malware is was designed to treat, software and hardware configuration differences can yield these results. Both experiences can be an accurate assessment of the local situation.

I always tread lightly when installing new software, any new software, and make sure that I have backups of critical files if needed.

As Anthony's experience suggests, be ready for the unanticipated and don't be reluctant to ask for help if a problem appears.

Blue

 

Thanks all of you for your help. It's very important for me.
I am just looking for the recommended sites.
Perhaps is better for me to start with free version of some products and then decide.

 

Been a LNS user way back since forums were hosted on Becky's forums and never had problems on either 98, win2k and xp platforms

 

For Firewalls I would suggest either LNS or Kerio 2.1.5. Kerio is free, and for AV I would suggest either NOD32 or the new Avast! release candidate which should go final this week. The new Avast! 4.6 (final) just released is pretty darn low on resources and free too.
Personally, I would use the two free ones if it were me because my funds are limited.

 

Hi SlovaK

I have install Zone Alarm free and for antivirus new Avast 4.6.

I will use these two for a while and see if all work fine.

Thanks a lot
Have a nice day.

 

Green Dragon,

an alternative way to stay save is NOT having a firewall at all just try to reduce your program code, ie. disable unneccessary services, close all listening ports and give FireFox (web browser) a try. if your ports are closed, nothing can happen to you because that means there is nothing there to accept connections. I dumped my firewall a long time ago, no problems at all (ok, I am not stealthed, but that's a marketing gag anyway)

if you are into filesharing and such, give NOD32 as resident scanner and Kaspersky as on demand scanner a try. imo, they are doing a great job. and keep in mind, once a program IS on your computer, there are 100000 ways that it can connect to the outside world, even if you have the latest greatest firewall. In the end, it all boils down to one program: brain.exe, ie. your head if you are aware of the dangers installing new/unknown programs then you don't have to worry

CHEERs

 

While it is possible to limit many vulnerabilities by closing Windows services, this will not provide as much protection as running a firewall will. Specifically, a firewall can block network traffic designed to crash Windows' networking (e.g. overlapping fragmented packets) by preventing it from reaching the network subsystem in the first place.

This is a more technical issue - but for everyday use, a properly configured (this is important!) firewall makes security easier. You only have to worry about those programs allowed access through it (email, web browser, etc) and take steps to secure them separately (e.g. anti-virus for email, web-filter for the browser). Without a firewall, you have to worry about dozens of extra Windows services - some of which cannot be closed down.

 

this only happens when someone with a lot of resources starts a Flood or DOS attack (teardrop, etc.) against your particular machine. but then a software firewall can't help you either ... your system will become slower and slower - nothing you can do about it. it may not crash because most tcp/ip stacks are well patched for this sort of attacks nowadays

exactly my point, that's why I suggested disabling services you don't need - then you don't have to worry at all. there are many that run out of the box on windows systems that are not needed. so, my suggestion was to switch them off. and even if you need taskscheduler or therelike you are usually able to close the listening ports they open up. so why add more code to a system when you can do the same with less code thus saving resources and preventing unknown or undisclosed vulnerabilities of additional code like firewalls ... just check above how looknstop crashed that user's system

CHEERs

btw, I don't deny the usefulness of a firewall (concept) if you want to provide public services. but for normal day to day email, browsing etc. a firewall is not neccessary if you use your brain like suggested above

 

I had to reply to this . I hear so much of Look n Stop . Please people . Stop inflicting this on newbies ! LnS stinks for newbies . It has to be configured . Even the people at LnS have different configurations you can implement . Bottom line , STAY AWAY FROM LnS ! In order for it work properly , you must manually fool with the settings and make your own rules . Firewalls are what I do for a partial living . LnS is NOT for you . Good luck .

 

An overlapping fragment attack can involve just 2 packets, no flooding needed (more details in section 4 of RFC 1858 - Security Considerations for IP Fragment Filtering). While patches have been made available for this, no-one can rule out possible future variants on Windows systems.

Some services cannot be disabled without causing serious problems - firewalling is the only solution for them.

 

This is an unwarranted statement.
LNS with it's enhanced ruleset is all 98% of users need even newbies.

 

Green Dragon,

Just to get your thread back on-topic, ZoneAlarm is a good choice for new users due to its simplicity. Once you are familiar with it you may wish to consider a rules-based firewall like Kerio, Look'n'Stop or Outpost (which offer more control over your applications).

Not running a firewall is certainly an option, but not one that most people here would advise. Good luck.

 

Can i ask what is the difference between zone alarm free and retail. Is the retail better at stopping attacks or is it simply a features thing.

Sorry if this is going off topic but i thought it may be ok saying that the topic starter is using ZA free.

 

Anthony,

You can do other comparisons at the Zonelabs site, but see here for a feature comparison of ZA free vs. ZA Pro

Blue

 

This is an unwarranted statement.
LNS with it's enhanced ruleset is all 98% of users need even newbies.
__________________
Unwarranted ? Very sorry if I upset you but , you do need to ADD the ruleset . It did not come configured that way when I tested it . Again . This is what I do . If you feel that LnS is good for newbies , please , continue to push it on them . They will come away a little upset at the things needed to be done to have it work AND protect to the best of it's ability . I , again , am sorry for upsetting people but , I agree with Paranoid . ZA is excellent for beginners . Outpost is ok . As Outpost can be easily set to ask about everything and will make it's own rules for you . Best protection AND ease of use , I would have to recommend Zone Alarm . I , personally , did not care for the bugs in their latest effort but , still works very well and extremely easy to use . Good luck on your quest

 

Outpost Pro 2.5 is great and extremely easy to use also. You can install it out of the box without having to do ANYTHING, and it will be fine for most users. Then later, when one is more familiar with the rules and things, you can tweak it and tighten things up if desired.

 

Hi Kerodo .

I second that . Outpost guides you as you go along . It also installs it's own rules for well known apps . You control this in the install menu . It will simply ask if you wish Outpost to create a ruleset for the apps it finds during install . how sweeeeet ! Does not get much easier than that .

 

Fellow Creatures,
I use OutPost Pro myself on my older compaq. Works for me and I am using it just the way Kerodo said.

Hey all, did you see the somewhat technical debate going on between Paranoid 2000 and JoMcDo...most users are not going to have a clue, even I am not all that good with Firewalls. This is why I stayed away from LnS myself. IMO a machine connected to a broadband line always on should never and I mean never run without a firewall of some kind. This is courting trouble it's like waving a red flag at a bull. IMO this issue for the average user is a nonstarter in so far as a debate. I suppose a very careful knowledgable user on dialup could with limited use a machine without a firewall. But I would never recommend it Be safe my friends get a firewall even if you just run the SP2 Windows one it's better then nothing. One final point and I will fly off, I would be real careful about suggesting to folks that it is a marketing gag, someone like a newbie might take it seriously and get themselves in a lot of trouble with their system.

 

That's not necessarily true. Many things can happen. Exploits are going to be found in Firefox and other browsers, though not to the degree they have been in IE. Unless you can guatantee that you'll be the only one ever using that computer, and can guarantee that you'll never open an e-mail you shouldn't, and can be positive that you'll never open a spoofed webpage link, and are sure that you'll never download any program that may have something bundled to it, get a firewall.
Windows firewall doesn't control outgoing traffic like most firewalls do. You'd be suprised how many system components want internet access, especially with XP. A lot of them don't need it. Some can be and are exploited. If you're on a slow connection, preventing system components that don't actually require internet access from using up your bandwidth can actually speed up the net for you a little. A good firewall can prevent adware and trojans that slip past your defenses from accessing the internet. Kerio 2.1.5 is a very effective firewall that's very easy on your system. Even though it's rule based, it's not that hard to configure. The help file that comes with it is good. If you're uncomfortable with firewall rules, there's other firewalls that are easier to set up, Zone Alarm, Sygate, etc.
When a good firewall can be had for free, why take the risk?
Rick

 

regarding the need for a firewall or not .... heres a neat backflash from the past https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=7314&highlight=firewalls

 

Some interesting posts there, but it is worth noting that things have moved on from then - specifically we now have malware using tunneling (leaktest) exploits.

The two key areas that a personal firewall can address are:

• Blocking incoming packets intended to crash Windows' network stack (using exploits like overlapping fragments or illegal TCP/IP flag settings) - closing ports provides no protection from this sort of attack;
• Controlling outgoing traffic - not only blocking network access to any malware that manages to bypass other security measures but also alerting you to a possible compromise.