looking for free low footprint firewall w/few popups

Hi everyone. Like the title says I am looking for a free firewall with a (relatively) low footprint that doesnt flood me with tons of popups. My wife's laptop is getting old and Comodo seemed to bog it down and the fifty popups every time I installed or updated a program drove me crazy. Even if you said it was a trusted application you still get 3 or 4 more popups after that.

I like that the free Online Armor has a community driven list of recognized safe programs but I read that the free version does have a number of popups when installing/updated programs. Is OA a light firewall resource wise?

The laptop runs XP home SP2, she runs as a limited user behind an Actiontech router (FIOS). I have AVG av, spybot, and ad aware. I currently run the XP firewall but realize it has no outbound protection.

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks in advance

 

If anyone finds such a firewall I'd like to hear about it. As long as the FREE requirement has to be met, a very low footprint firewall, other than the XP firewall, will be difficult or impossible to find.

Outbound protection is overrated (although not useless).

Does your wife have a wireless connection with that laptop ? Then I'd say inbound protection is also a concern, although it is very unlikely that anyone will ever hack into her system, unless she is a high profile target.

Something else: AVG av is probably not a strong antivirus, and spybot and ad aware are not the best choices for antispyware protection. If they offer real-time protection it's probably not that good.

 

I have used ZA (old version 6) and Sygate and have not received a popup (other than a port scan attempt and a program attempting to auto update) in a long time. Both programs are outdated and considered "old", but they are working fine and I haven't any issues with using them.

 

Since you like Online Armor why not just turn off the HIPS module? That should stop the pop-ups.

 

Ever tried Tiny/Kerio 2.15? I still install it on some computers using XP.

Michael

 

You should test GhostWall. Definitely zero pop-ups. Just build your rules and forget it.

 

MikeNas beat me to suggesting Ghostwall. better than windows native FW, and the free FW with the least impact on performances.

... and, NO.pop'up.at.all. lol.

 

Behind a router the windows firewall ought to be enough. Actually, all it does for you in that case is stealth any ports that are forwarded on the router. The whold outbound protection thing is a big waste. If the machine is already LUA, enable a software restriction policy for additional protection. This will prevent programs downloaded to the temp folder or browser cache from running without administrative rights, thus preventing many drive by attacks.

 

you can setup comodo as well do pop 1 time for the new program , or pop up for every actions , or use the learn feature it will not pop up

for me better then comodo there is nothing

 

but is tiny firewall still alive?
i can find the home page

 

You can find Kerio 2.15 at Last Freeware Version

http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/page7.html

 

sygate or kerio 2.1.5. the only way to go, imho
ive used both for yrs, no popups and no hassels.
both are light on resourses.
L

 

but tiny firewall and kerio are the same product?

 

The last Tiny firewall version (6.5) appears to date from 2005.

http://www.download.com/Tiny-Personal-Firewall/3000-10435_4-10266527.html

Tiny Software's firewall program was taken over by Kerio in 2002. Kerio continued the development of the firewall (the last "supposed" version under Tiny was 2.0.15 (2001)) and the last under Kerio was version 4 (2003) before Sunbelt bought them out in 2005. The Kerio version 2.1.5 (2003 version) was the last "stable" version put out by that company. Version 3 was never released and version 4 was not widely used and then the program was totally revamped by Sunbelt Software on their releases.

The firewall version 6.5 (2005) is not based on the program taken over by Kerio. Tiny was later taken over by CA.

So you have Tiny branching off to Kerio/Sunbelt and then another branching off to CA. Hope this makes sense.

 

Flesclab meets all the requirements and is extremely simple to use
Download Here

 

Running CFP with default settings on a clean system and full HIPS enabled should give minimum pop-ups.
When installing sth new -> installation mode
When running sth new -> training mode
With no HIPS, just a pure firewall, almost none.

I don't understand what footprint means, I guess sth about recourses. This is a print-screen after 25-30 hours of pc usage on my Vista machine.

 

Kerio 2.15 is the last version of the famed free tiny firewall. Any later versions of kerio or tiny are different programs.

more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_Software

 

Yes, it seems that Tiny has left its "footprint" on several companies.

"original" Tiny - last version is 2.0.15
Kerio - last version is 4.2 (last "stable" version is 2.1.5)
"new" Tiny - last version is 6.5
Sunbelt - last version is 4.5 (continuation of Kerio)

 

All versions above 2.15 are completely different programs. The lightweight version worth seeking is kerio 2.15

You might also want to check out BlitzenZeus excellent ruleset for it.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8023708

 

As a further clarification, Tiny 2.0.15A (2001) should not be confused with Kerio 2.1.5 (2003). Kerio 3 (never released) and Kerio 4 were developed with major changes to the original program.

 

Actually these two are very similar. You could even consider kerio 2.15 just a small update to Tiny 2.0.15 hence the confusion about this firewall.

 

Ghostwall...one way or two way firewall? Also, what about Ashampoo?

 

See it yourself

 

Well, if you put a firewall in automatic mode, if it has one, it won't bother you much.
If you want non-bothering firewalls, forget top-notched ones like comodo, zonealarm, since they all have much alerts,

 

I had already checked out Ghostwall's website prior to posting my question and I can't tell if Ghostwall is one-way or two-way. Their web site emphasizes that their firewall is intended to replace Windows Firewall's functionality. Since WF is one-way only, then I could guess that Ghostwall is one-way only as well. But some of the fields shown in their screenshots have the words "outbound". That would suggest it is a two-way firewall. ?