New Firewall

I currently use Norton's personal firewall, which apart from slowing everything else up has been quite good. My subscription it up for renewal, are there any better products around?

 

Hi chilly

...welcome to Wilders

Which version of NIS/NPF? While everyones experience with a particular software will vary, I have not experienced any noticeable slowdowns when I have used NIS/NPF (up to 2003 - I have not looked at 2004).

Any specific features you are looking for? There is quite a number to choose from these days.

Regards,

CrazyM

 

chilly, welcome to the forum
As CrazyM stated there is a lot of them
to choose from.You should be the one to ultimetly decide.
My choice for you to take a look at would be Outpost by Agnitum--->
New Outpost Personal Firewall Pro 2.0 outdistances the award-winning Outpost Personal Firewall Pro 1.0 on multiple levels, from enhanced privacy features to ease-of-use. As the foremost security application for personal computers, Outpost Personal Firewall Pro 2.0 gives you the latest in personal firewall technology, making version 2.0 the clear security choice for your system.
MoreInfo-->
http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpost/
-------------------------------------------------------
We are currently beta testing 2.1 and the release date is not confirmed yet(will be awesome though)
If you go Outpost please stop by the forum if you need
any help or assistence--->
http://www.outpostfirewall.com/forum/index.php?s=

 

OK, sounds good.

So there is no pressure then!

 

Look n stop is pretty good also http://www.wilderssecurity.com/index.php?board=13

 

So there is no pressure then!

nope

 

If I may add to your post....I was very unhappy with Outpost as they would not even reply to my email to them. I downloaded a trial version of Outpost and when I installed it, it was expired!!! I had emailed them 3 times with no help......Now this may be a great firewall.....however for them to ignore help.. and ignore emails shows me they are not professionals...sorry...to say...but thats my opinion...

 

I couldnt agree more. Outpost is the worst firewall I have ever known. Try ZonaAlarm - as this has all the features that Outpost tries to implement, but it has the advantage of being supported by a large reliable company and it is so much easier to configure and more reliable.

I have tried Look'n'Stop and found it to be a great product which focuses on being a firewall and does not bother with things like blocking popups, webbugs or filtering email attachments (I think a firewall should stick to protecting the ports on a PC and not try to do all these other things)

I guess its all down to how you personally like a product etc. My fave is BlackICE. I think a trial is available from somewhere.

 

Actually, I use ZA myself more often than other firewalls; The main drawback is the fact that it wallops a huge amount of resources, especially when used in conjunction with some other apps that require Net access, eventually it is supposed to swell in memory and in the end kill the connection - an application restart is then required GRRR

OPP uses almost as many resources though not quite as much, but its leak protection is somewhat inferior, though this might change with v2.1, who knows.

LnS uses few resources and has good leak protection, but no extra features (I'll get back 2 that)

All in all, LnS, OPP and ZA each have their benefits & drawbacks...

As for Blackice, I never tried it. But no doubt you have heard about the Blackice Vs. 'grc Leaktest' issue?

Wellp, here we go again! This has been trotted over and over again on this forum. Cookie-killing, popup and script-blocking are privacy features. In short I disagree with you in the sense that security and privacy go well together, don't you think?

Besides I've never been able to find a FREEWARE util on the Net that does Cookie, Popup, Script (java & VB) and ActiveX-blocking, plus others, all in one..

 

...and they have somewhat different stylistic approaches of implementing a firewall. Try each for a while, one user interface or organizing structure may click with you.

and as Symantec users know, that's not an automatic ticket to superior product support performance. For each of the vendors mentioned (and I've personally used and have current licenses for ZA and OPP), my primary support resource are the official and unofficial product forums, not the vendor directly.

Right now I have OPP installed on all four of my home PC's using a family pack license. I've been an active user for a couple of months. I'm very satisfied thus far (and that includes the internal vendor support by the way). There are a couple of things that should be fixed in the 2.1 update, but basically OPP works fine right now. ZA was a significantly greater drag on my PC, but also was functionally fine on that machine.

Although the posts above may suggest night and day performance differences, in general I've never seen that type of difference. It is important to do trial tests since this should reveal any incompatibilities between a given firewall and your PC with its unique combination of applications, live application usage mix, other quirks, and configuration.

Blue

 

Please don't beat for this. I use and like Kerio 4.0 . It's rather a nice firewall. You can find it at http://www.kerio.com

 

LooknStop is great. I've been fooling with the new McAfee Personal Firewall Plus and think I might have to buy it. It's a firewall, and doesn't have the added bells and whistles, but I really like the GUI. It's nice. It's stealth everywhere I've checked it. I haven't bothered with leaktests.

 

I get hooked with Sygate Personal Firewall PRO. Just love it. It's just like "Fire and Forget." Wouldn't even know that it was there and tough as nail. Just like love at first sight.

 

One more thing: ZA is a good firewall, BUT I've had word that it was absorbed by another company, can't recall the name - anyhow, it is no longer property of Zonelabs. Experience in the past has shown this to be of evil omen for a product (cf. ATguard )


As for stealth... well, my guess is, all modern firewalls (ZA, OPP, LnS, TPF, KPF, BID, Kerio, ...) are utterly equivalent when it comes to inbound protection.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong

 

Here it is,

http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/aboutUs/pressroom/pressReleases/2003/pr_50.jsp




snowbound

 

Thanks for all the feedback! Lots of different views on many products. Ive decided to go for McAfee Personal Firewall Plus. Hope ive made the right choice.

Regards

Chilly

 

If it works on your PC and you're happy with the performance, it's the right choice. And when you first notice that little quirk that starts to make you wonder whether you made the right choice, just remember that they all have these little quirks and you get use to it after a while - after all, we did with our choices!

Cheers,

Blue

 

oustpost may not be great at replying to ur emails. but theres a very good support forum over at www.outpostfirewall.com - all questions will be answered there, either by outpost staff or by other users.

imho outpost is by far the best software firewall out there

 

Try Outpost 2. It's awesome, but you have to learn how to configure it. Grant

 

I agree with tahoma's comments about Outpost's support forum. They are very friendly and helpful. I had several questions about setting up Outpost Pro v2 when I first installed it, and the people at the forum got me through it. I think it is a very good firewall.