For users who are still using WinXP, which one of the following software firewalls would be better? Comodo Firewall Outpost Firewall Pro Spyshelter Firewall PrivateFirewall Here I only list some firewalls which have HIPS modules, and have not been abandoned by the vendors (I am not sure whether PrivateFirewall is abandoned, but since it still supports Win 10, I assume that it is not abandoned). Some other famous firewalls, such as ZoneAlarm firewall, Tinyfirewall, LnS, Online Armor, etc, are not listed here, because I think they may not satisfy either of the two requirements mentioned above. Please correct me if I make a mistake here. I hope you can evaluate these firewalls listed here in terms of not only security, but also the stability and the impact on the system and connection speed. It would be better if you could share some HIPS rules / Firewall rules that you think is important for XP users. Thank you.
Online Armor required several backend servers to function, and install. They are going to be turned off sometime this spring, but installs have already been shut down.
I've tried both Commodo and Private Firewall in Xp. Commodo was interesting but way to bloated for the Pentium M Xp machine I wanted to use it on. Private Firewall was actually pretty decent but I didn't like the cartoon cop tray icon and went back to the old version of Sygate I had for that machine which can coexist with the built in Windows firewall. I would put Private Firewall on an Xp system for someone else even if I don't use it myself. Outpost and Spyshelter have high licensing costs that need to be paid every year and that cost is simply not worth it for Xp boxes.
Other - or rather, none. If you're still using XP for day-to-day stuff, then IMO you need to use a different environment for anything private. @Online_Sword I know someone who is stuck on XP, but is a computer novice; I'm still working out a reasonable strategy for them. For more advanced/experienced users, I'd say either have a dedicated machine with a modern OS; or use a Linux live medium for banking, purchases, and whatnot. I don't believe XP should be considered trustworthy for anything involving money, at this point.
Privatefirewall for me. Light and strong. It´s "only" a very good firewall, without adds. Perfect for my config (1 Gb RAM. It´s running with Panda free),
Other..... Still on XP and using DefenseWall w/Firewall for about 7-8 years along with Shadow Defender for about 6-7 years. Never in this time had I been infected.
I wouldn't hesitate to use Xp that way if I had too. I just have more options and better choices. When all the main browsers don't support Xp anymore and I can't have an up to date browser with extensions like Noscript and uBlock and uMatrix, then it will really be time to move on. Lock down the system and do everything from a LUA with an up to date browser with security extensions like those I mentioned and a good hosts file and external firewall and Xp will be secure enough as long as you don't do much else with that system. If you are going to be surfing a lot and installing software, I wouldn't try to do anything that involved money in Xp but I'm not sure newer versions of Windows would be much better. If you are doing business with a computer, the security needs are different and higher than otherwise. In the case of someone who is really a novice, I would try to get them onto a newer Windows at least , if not Linux.
Other: Outpost Firewall 2009 ver. 6.5.1 (2725.381.0687). Win xp sp3. Majorgeeks still has either this or a very close version. Been using it as part of a simple layered security setup for many years, no problems. I'll use it for banking, but wouldn't recommend that for most folks. Depends on the rest of ones security setup, and the quality of the bank's defense strategy, I guess.
@login123 I have listed Outpost Firewall Pro as the second option. Or maybe you think 2009 ver 6.5.1 is quite different from (or better than) the latest version?
And can the servers on the banking websites be comsidered trustworthy then..? Banking security should have nothing to do with the operating system but rather the security of the browser and financial institutions servers.
@ Online_Sword I wasn't sure if Outpost Pro was the same thing. Some of the later Outpost versions would not install because Powershadow was installed (not running, just installed). They also wanted to install the full suite, including the antivirus, which I don't use. Edit: Don't have enough experience with other versions to say that 6.5.1 is definitely better, but it works well here.
I voted for SpyShelter Firewall, but now that I think of it, it's not a true firewall, it should be used together with the Win Firewall. On the other hand, most modem/routers already stealth ports.
@Minimalist MD has already been abandoned by the vendor for a long time. I am afraid that even if it had some serious bugs, no one could fix it... @Rasheed187 What is the meaning of a true firewall? Sorry, I am not very familiar with this area. I guess you mean a true firewall should be able to stealth ports, and/or make fine-grained rules (involving protocols, directions, etc) for ports, right? It seems that Spyshelter actually lacks of such ability.
Yes correct, it doesn't offer those things, but SS is still useful to block outgoing and incoming connections. Of course you can also do this with the Win Firewall.
Yes unfortunately it is not under development. I tested it on XP with all updates installed and it run with no problems. So personally, if I would still be using XP, I would use MD.
Voted other. I use ESET Smart Security - it includes both Firewall, HIPS and AV/AM. And IIRC ESET will support XP till 2017 at least. But not worth using ESS if you don't plan on keeping the AV/AM part enabled as well, since it is very effectice at blocking stuff at the network level.
Comodo FW v5.10... it's the best version they've ever made til this day. Most stable, most intuitive interface/GUI. Very powerful HIPS if you're willing to set it to Paranoid and take the time to whitelist rules. On Windows OS's since it's just not feasible to do this because a thousand things are all trying to do stuff at all times and the thing will never shut up. But on XP within a week or two it'll quiet down. FW rule setting is very granular. And the thing runs light on my XP setup anyway and plays nicely with everything. I don't worry about vendor support because you can lock the OS down to the point where a real time AV isn't even necessary with other measures in place. And the OS itself, contrary to popular belief, is supported until at least 2019 with a simple registry tweak. And I'd bet there will be extended support that'll push that date into the early 2020's, right there with Win7 & 8.
If I had to use XP, outbound filtering would be the least of my concern so I would just use the built-in firewall. However if I wanted a firewall with HIPS, then Comodo. I believe the last version I used was V5.10 or V5.12.
