I upgraded Comodo to the latest version a couple of days ago, and I'm finding it really slow on my ageing XP system, and was thinking of replacing it with something else, but I'm not that familiar with firewalls really. Could anyone suggest a lightweight alternative? Preferrably free, light, install and forget, as I'm no expert and I won't be playing with lots of settings or anything.
You could take a look at PrivateFirewall http://www.privacyware.com/personal_firewall.html Working great for me on XP and extremely light and free.
You may consider upgrading your OS in my humble opinion.Most of todays firewalls are designed to run better with vista and onwards. Just a suggestion.
For XP...for free, light, efficient and solid...the winner iiiisssss...Filseclab...second will be Kerio 2.1.5
It was a good firewall back in the day, but that firewall hasn't had any further improvement/development since around '05. The OP already has an aging OS due to be phased out by MS in a few months, adding an aged and dated security product doesn't strike me as prudent.
I vote for Kerio Personal Firewall v2.1.5 Very lightweight rules based firewall with built-in MD5 file checking. Kerio is one of many reasons to stick with XP.
Two years ago or maybe even in 2012 there was the ability of updating firewall to v. 3.03.8982 (as I remeber dated on 2008 ). Today it's impossible to do this but probably suport of Filseclab can help - they sent me link to installation file of updating to private box.
Maybe you mean this link -http://dl.filseclab.com/update/xfilter_update_pack_en.exe- Though the file inside it is from December 2006. Found that link via google while searching for "Filseclab 3.03.8982".
Thanks for the suggestions. I've gone with Privatefirewall, and it seems fine. It's certainly seems very light and good.
From another diehard XP user... I also used and really appreciated Kerio 2.15 - but it started giving me BSODs and nothing I could find seemed to alleviate that problem. Finally gave up on it and tried many others since without ever finding it's equal. As an aside - long ago there was a very nice one called Hackersmacker which was about as good/light as Kerio. Sadly it just quit working altogether and by then the company no longer acknowledged it's existence. Really good/light firewalls are seriously not easy to come by IMO.
I can think of (2) that are readily available, Privatefirewall and Online Armour. I use PFW now, but had used OA in the past. I Prefer PFW.
OK...probably you are right...it's only because of my memory but it don't causes change of my opinion
DefenseWall, have it on my wife's computer (XP). No pop-ups just does what it is suppose to do. Since I had it on haven't had to reformat her computer in over a year! No trace of maleware. Highly recommended. Install and forget. But only for 32bit systems. Sorry, you said free. it is not.
Even better for an ageing XP setup: Just use a router and/or XP's built-in firewall. You need to keep the software environment as light as possible on XP on older hardware these days if you want to run it with half decent efficiency. I suppose if you're happy with Private fw then that's fine, but it really doesn't take much added to XP before it labours noticeably when applications running real time are added to it.