Looking for free, simple and Vista compatible firewall...

My only candidates were PCTools Firewall and Check Point ZoneAlarm.
PCTools was a real miracle to install and blocked ALL connections so i couldn't do s**t. ZoneAlarm installed fine but resulted in awful 2 second delay for all webpages before they started to render in browser.
So what's left? Not much. I don't want some bloated firewall, i need simple one without ridiculos HIPS crap and bunch of other useless "features" that spawn countless numbers of popups. It also has to be Vista compatible, free (doh) and preferably has nice interface (i kinda liked PCTools one, if only wouldn't lock me out from net...). Any other recommendations?

 

Not a free one, but it works with Vista: CA Personal Firewall.
Whether it's a good one, don't know, but there aren't that many free/paid firewalls at present for Vista or maybe I missed some.
There also Sunbelt Personal Firewall and that's a free one.

 

I use the windows firewall and it is doing just fine

 

They plan on releasing a vista-version soon....but not yet.

 

I'm using it but a firewall with simple outbound program countrol would be fine too. Vista firewall blocks only apps acting like server...

 

Vista's firewall does have outbound filtering but its disabled by default.

 

Well i couldn't find it and only option that i thought would do that completelly blocked the net. So if you can point me where you found this setting i'd be very happy.

 

The "Windows Firewall with Advanced Security" can be accessed from Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Administrative Tools.

I dont know much of it though.

 

You're right, looked at the wrong information.
Thanks for the correction.

So that doesn't leave much choice, other then a paid firewall or else the one in Vista.

 

I know where to access it but i couldn't find any option related to "enabling WIn firewall to ask when program requests any kind of outbound connecton". That would be ideal.

 

I don't use Vista but i googled and seems to be explained how to work with it, here,

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128834-c,vistalonghorn/article.html



snowbound

 

This doesn't answer what he said back there. It just says there isn't any way for regular outbound filtering, not how to set it up as one. Flipping that thing to block, blocks everything even though i have rule there that enables program to make outbound connection. Useless concept if you ask me.

 

I tried configuring the Vista firewall for good outbound protection when I upgraded from XP, but it was an exercise in futility.

 

Using the Vista built in FW here with outbound filtering enabled. It works, but it it a bit difficult as there is no warning when a program is blocked. It just gets blocked.

Setting it up for windows update and time service takes a bit of skill. Use a custom rule for svchost.exe limited to the relevant service. Ports 80 and 443 TCP for update and 123 UDP for time. This is actually an improvement over most third party firewalls where svchost.exe is not limited by service.

The outbound filtering does not care how a program is started, nor does it notice if a program has been updated. Its protection against leaks is primitive in that sense.

Adjustment of the settings for public and private networks is done when connecting. Vista asks you if you want to make the network public or private and that profile is adopted. Nice for laptop users. Just do not allow network discovery to be enabled for all public networks. It is hard to change back.

 

This works, but I haven't tried it with any leak tests.

http://www.sphinx-soft.com/Vista/index.html

Ashampoo has a free vista compatible firewall too.

 

I'm in the same boat.

Waiting for Comodo 3 but realise this could take some time so am using ZA free at the moment. Am sure it's slowing things a little (Firefox opens slowly at first but page loading seems okay) but don't want to spend any money at the moment on something that's not quite what I want just to fill in for the moment.

The other interesting one is Eset's suite (I'm a NOD32 user) but to be honest prefer the flexibility of individual products.

May all depend on who gets their act together first.

 

Are you using the latest version of ZA Free? I am behind a router firewall, and just use the Windows XP Firewall, but I occasionally like to use Comodo Pro, PC Tools, and ZA Free for the heck of it. I recently had the free version of ZA 6.5.737 installed and it was very stable with no noticeable slowdowns even when rebooting. A few in the know members at Zone Labs (Check Point) Forums actually recommend this version and also 6.1.744.001 over the newest version of ZA Free. I did the /clean uninstall procedure and there was no traces left afterwards. I did however have some trouble uninstalling version 7 a few months ago.

 

Hm, Ashampoo Firewall doesn't seem to support Vista. Are you sure about that?

 

It used to be labelled as Vista compatible but they must have changed it. It was a little buggy but it worked OK (LSP based, not KMD). You can probably still install it if you edit the installer (if it's an msi).

The one I mentioned from Sphinx supposedly is an interface to the windows firewall.

 

PC tools FW is working fine here on this Vista install.

Tried to configure the default Vista fw to stop the leaktest.exe from GRC but the only way I did manage to stop leaktest was to stop all connections.

Tuning Vista Firewall

 

Yes it is the latest version - the only Vista compatible one. Am also behind a router firewall. I've heard the same things about ZA but have no option.

 

That's right you have Vista, I forgot you have to use the latest version. 7.1 looks good though as far as GUI. There isn't a free version yet of 7.1 though, so why not try ZA Pro 7.1? Of course there may be issues with it.

 

THe first 7.1 released was the free version
http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_za.jsp?dc=12bms&ctry=US&lang=en

 

Thanks eBBox, not only have you helped me with what is available with ZA these days, but to see there are still troubles with this Firewall. I like ZA and have tried a few of the different versions, but thankfully because I don't have Vista I can still use older versions 6.1.744.001, or 6.5.737 which for the most part were trouble free. I've even had a very stable version the 4.5 series installed and liked the fact it didn't have Antivirus monitoring. 6.5.737 ran very though well as I said in an earlier post, and if I'd try ZA Free again at least from what I have learned recently, would choose it over 7.1.

 

Do you remember which 4.5.