Which firewall to choose

Recently installed Comodo (firewall only, no AV or D+) and it's running very light.
Usage on my XP SP3 system, after about half an hour of surfing:

 

cpu time and memory seem to be pretty low but wow are the IO reads and writes sky high...

 

Actually they're very low...
Just opening chrome and navigating to this page used up 10 times more I/O read & write bytes.

 

well im just judging by the screenshot. and in there they are very high.

 

Are you sure you're comparing them to read and write bytes, instead of read and writes?

Both of those processes combined used 850 reads and 350 writes, with a total of 2.5 million read bytes and 165k write bytes.

 

o woops, my bad, cuz of the dark background behind the text i guess i missed the bytes part.

 

"Its faster, less lag, and do not slow down my pc"

Here is included the CPU

 

Dermot7,

Thanks for recommending Privatefirewall, it's running good on XP sp3 & Windows 7 64bit.

I really like OA, but the latest version is causing my XP to occasionally freeze up.

 

You're welcome zip. I've found privatefirewall to be fairly versatile. As regards
recurring XP problem, maybe privacyware support could help, or hopefully an
expert here on Wilders?

 

I don't think privacyware support would be interested in helping with a problem with Online Armor firewall.

I did seek help on OA forums, but CatPrincess didn't have the answer for the problem.

So, here I am using Privatefirewall happily so far.

 

2.7 Mega Bytes I/O is with average disk throughput of 70 MB/sec less than is less than hals a second, add a maximum of 300 head positionings to it (say 10 millisecs for ease of comparison on 1/3 to 1/3 of the total reads/writes) is 3 seconds. Cache of the harddisk and delayed write cache will snoop off 30% so it is just over two secs total wait time. Setting this to lowest amount of read/write (the writes of 300), means that is less than 15 milliseconds delay at traffic capture (when filtering kicks in). Only the bionic man would notice this.

 

Sorry zip,
It seems I didn't see the "OA" in your post (#33) !!!
Hope PFW works out for you,
Happy Christmas!

 

Privatefirewall is working very nicely for me.

No problems & very lite. Both computers seem to be faster than ever.

Merry Christmas to you also.

 

The Free Sphinx Firewall Control is rather useless imho, because it doesn't have system/core protection.

 

Thanks..I may try this, noticed it's free too.

 

well thats not the job of a firewall, i think ur thinking of a HIPS... which seems to be the definition of a firewall nowadays.

 

Free version of Sphinx will only control 3rd party apps. Windows system files are automatically allowed to access the net. See here.

 

It seems like whenever someone asks for a suggestion for a firewall, people start advising all of the apps that only do well on matousec tests. Isn't a firewall a packet filter/application gateway that monitors traffic? Matousec is testing HIPS isn't it? Those aren't the same thing are they?

 

ah, that explanation is a bit more clear, i see what he means now.

 

Depends on how you define a firewall ..

I see there are 3 generations of firewall:

Gen 1: Basic packet filter for your system
Gen 2: Application aware, packet filter, can app X send on port Y, instead of just can I send on port Y
Gen 3: Enforce outbound rules, make sure apps follow the rules, not just a layer of outside world to pc, but a layer between apps as well.

in that way the matousec test follow on from what a gen 3 firewall looks like.

If you acutally want to control outbound then you need to be able to pass a lot of the matousec tests

 

Ok thanks for all of the information here. For me I just want to know if another person has my ip and were to do a bunch port scans decide to do some tcp/udp trick like my old firewalls(no longer free) have been constantly telling me, which firewall (currently free) would be best to protect me.

 

Hi Dacksal,
Depending on what operating system you're using, +32 or 64 bit, maybe you should look at either Agnitum Outpost Free or Privacyware's PrivateFirewall(free), and perhaps consider Ixquick search engine.
Cheers.

 

I have a subscription to Zone alarm Pro that I got for free. i bought a subscription of ZISS that runs out in April wich I do not have installed. Pulled my old computer down too much. I like Zone Alarm but even the Pro version seems like it uses a lot of CPU and memory. Then there is thye antivirus issue. Avast Fee has issuies with ZA and Avira Free has issuies in gereneral. I have a free trial of McAfee Virus Scan also. A subscription of Antimalware, iorbit 360, Super Antispyware Pro. Which would be the best set up with Zone Alarm or should I try a differnt setup. Is Nod 32 a good antivirus with ZA and would that keep me covered?
Please help me to decide about this ZA Pro.
Thank You.

davhag64

 

Check out PC Tools Firewall Free.

 

Unless users are prepared to learn about firewalls they will flounder about from vendor to vendor gaining nothing but issues and frustrations.

1) All FW's eat CPU resources thus slow the PC, this is good as it means they are doing something security wise

2) All FW need to be installed some are harder than others but it is a one time task.

3) All FW's required some user interaction otherwise all these pop up about your PC descisions are turned over to a 3rd party vendor

4) PC Tools and Outpost both install okay allow users to connect to the www so you have errored somewhere along the way in trying for a silverbullet solution.

Please go to the top of this forum and read all the stickies learn and ask questions based on your learning.

If this doesn't appeal to you just use the W7 free FW ensure outbound protection is operating and hide behind your router.