PornSurfer

What is the best firewall for surfing porn sites? In otherwords, a firewall that will be safe from hackers under less than ideal conditions?

 

I doubt you will find a concrete answer here as I don't think anyone has done a "pornsite" firewall test that I know of. All I think you will get is personal opinions and if this was the case I would choose Outpost. Again personal choice. Sorry I can't help more.

Thanks,

Chris

 

Outpost's Active Content plugin can block a lot of website misbehaviour but a specialised web filter would be a better choice - Grypen's filterset for Proxomitron includes a number of filters for specific adult sites so you might find that the most useful for, um, "testing" purposes.

 

I think when Surfing potentially dangerous websites the most important thing is to ensure that the web browser and operating system is highly secured. At the very least they must be fully patched.

What type of configuration to use for the browser I wouldn't know, since I suspect a tight one would cause many sites to become non-functional, while a too loose one is just asking for trouble.

Firewalls are nice, but most of the attacks will come through your browser.

If you are downloading anything be sure to have your Anti-trojans and Anti-viruses up. Or better yet get one of those Antiviruses with http scanning function.

 

First I'm not emarrassed to use my real id to answer this But I have found that it is KAV that has protected me from nasties on those type of sites (normally trojan downloaders/dropper) I've recently added BOClean but I haven't been to any such sites to test if it picks up anything missed by KAV.

Wife is away at her frinds overnight so maybe I'll give it a try tonight

 

A friend of mine says he uses such sites to test his defences such as his AV and AT when he is trialing new security software. He says your guaranteed to trigger something.

 

I should imagine the most likely nasties you would encounter would be trojans and spyware as opposed to virii, so I would think real-time AT and/or antispyware protection would be your best bet.

 

Are porn and crack sites really so dangerous that merely surfing to them will cause problems?

Sure, my AV and AT occasionally popups alerts of things found in my cache, or some old outmoded exploit that doesn't work on my patched system, but they wouldn't have run or hurt me anyway.

 

A lot of it won't hurt you, but some of it surely will.

The first line of defence is your browser settings; if on IE have the security slider up to max and in 'Advanced' tab don't enable third party browser extensions, and don't enable install on demand.

For me an excellent FW is Zone Alarm Pro, this has mobile code control which prevents Java, ActiveX, scripting etc. Though you may need to have the 'cookie' slider off and the Ad-blocking to medium.

Aside from that, a good AV of course.

I've never been infected while surfing dangerous sites, so some basic precautions do work - so long as you don't download some 'plugin' or other 'enhancement' offered to you!

 

I don't know from personal experience, but a friend of mine says that all kinds of nasty stuff can happen, but he uses IE.

It's not the firewall that will protect you. If you let something in via your browser then that's how it hits you.

I would say use another browser other than IE first off (perhaps Firefox or Opera for example), and also a good AV with web scanning (like Avast for example), and that should stop most of the bad stuff. Then of course never say "yes" to any of the weird popups that you see that want to install something.

That's about all I can think of..

 

Best defence would be real time anti spyware like Spybot MSAS etc as most try and install BHO, dialers etc.

 

Well, a 'safe pornsurfing Firewall' would be virtually ANY firewall with Web Filtering enabled, OR, as Topper has already suggested, even IE with security set to HIGH. [JS/VBS/ActiveX disabled].

I mean, if a Firewall is supposed to protect you **anyway** from nasties, then going to a pornsite IMO would be no different than going to an already infected 'normal' site, would it?

Having said that, I do suppose that the ~chances~ of being hit would be greater than average, but remember, that a vast majority of pornsites rely on *your* patronage for revenue and having virtually every pornsite infected would in the end hit their own pockets.

It's probably following ALL the links inside that ends up being the problem, people click on anything and eventually would get in in the rear end with an infection, unless blocked.

Now, as to ****my**** personal porn surfer, ROFL, [not] I currently use Kerio V4. [Paid] but as I stated earlier, any decent FF would suffice.

TAS

 

Precisely, a very good point, I also currently use Online Armour and AdWatch [AdAware PRO's RTM].

TAS

 

I would used Outpost and make sure you have ActiveX disable, so they can't install any unwanted program.

 

Any evidence of this?

Well I don't consider this as a necessary function of a firewall. I prefer to use the right tools.




Aside from that, a good AV of course.

I've never been infected while surfing dangerous sites, so some basic precautions do work - so long as you don't download some 'plugin' or other 'enhancement' offered to you![/QUOTE]

 

Ever heard of a 'drive-by' download? How do you think it happens?

The website has carefully scripted code embedded in it, this exploits vulnerabilities in your system to force the download of a trojan which loads you with spyware. There is no way you can guarantee you are patched against all the possible exploits nor that your AV will have all the necessary sigs.

Look up the Symantec site and read through their descriptions of all the various 'Bloodhound' exploits to get a feel for this.

If you don't think it can happen, go to any Forum dealing with HijackThis logs - they are bursting nasties aquired through imprudent surfing of sites offering 'free' porn, music, games... whatever.

Excuse me, but I thought you were seeking advice for a suitable FW; if you can block these things with your FW you are going to be a whole lot safer - especially if you find the need to drop your IE settings to 'default' on occasions when more functionality is required (Java Script etc).

 

Well some of the original drive-by downloads only work with user interaction with the correct browser settings. But yes, I have heard of them.

You can be sure you are patched to the maximum possible against known exploits of course. And for some of us, who are on various security mailing lists, this goes double.

Still you can be hit by something totally unknown of course, but that's pretty rare, unless you have some evidence that it's common? After all you claim some can hurt you, so I thought you had specific examples or experiences to share where you discovered something new.

Yes those are exactly what i mean, harmless. By the time Symantec reacts enough to do a signature, the exploit is already public knowledge. But of course , users sees an alert and thinks he almost got owned. But actually it would not have worked anyway.

Sorry that wasn't ME. The original poster I think like many people have only a vague idea about what a firewall does. So he posted in this forum.

Like many others besides myself have pointed out, what is needed is a correct combination of virus, trojan and more anti-spyware scanners PLUS the right browser settings.

And for that , a firewall really isn't the point.

PS I find that 'default' on IE these days at least on XP SP2 isn't that bad.

 

I bet if someone marketed a "pornofirewall" (sounds crazy) that could handle all the weird traffic in the netherworld a ton of money could be made! Lets face it, porn has a major market share and it might be time to capitalize on this. Perhaps advertising with such firewall names as:

The "PornWell" Firewall

The "PornToday" Firewall

The "PornWave" Firewall

The "PornAll" Firewall

Great names to start. This is going to be big!!!

 

What Is Porn

 

I just saw this.....it's morning and i'm on my first cup of coffee........ahhh, i love starting the day with a good belly laugh.........so thanks P2K

 

I use a restricted (non-admin) XP account along with Firefox (Java OFF, install OFF) and NoScript.
I really can't see what could get through this setup, whatever the firewall.

 

I don't go to pr0n sites...but if I do I got Tiny2005 ... feeling protected however since it hasn't got an advanced webfilter like Outpost Pro ... I have to use a different approach:

Admuncher and SpyBlocker for the rest, adjusted to my own needs (yes you can) and then I can see naked ladies

j/k

 

I dont see what the problem is, if you go to professional big name porn sites then these are just like any site on the net only their content is different. These are professionally run sites you know.

But regardless to what those morons at PC World try to claim. I.E every problem no matter what it is even if theres smoke coming from your CRT Monitor is caused by you going to these sites---Sorry thats is a slight exaggeration--only slight though. So they use this excuse not to fix or repair anything.

But if you go to big name sites then you will have no problems. Which you would want to anyway as they have all the best content for money paid.

Its only when you start googling for specific sites covering different "genres" or looking for free porn (which is the holy grail it doesnt exist) should you worry and then likely 99.99% of the time it will be a Premium Rate dialler trying to secretely install that is the thing to worry about. Therefore what you need is a good dialler stopping AV (Panda, Mcafee OR KAV dont try botheing with nothing else especially Norton and i believe Nod32 wont do you no favours in this instance either).

And A browser that stops sites secretly installing things. I.e Firefox or Opera. Not Internet Explorer regardless if its locked down or patched it aint safe enough.

Warez and Crack sites now they are a completley different story. They are swines. Practically everysite will have one nasty thing on it, guarenteed!!. Most likely this will be the xxxtoolbar which trys to secretly install the same time you download the specific file your after. Which is one of the nastiest pieces of spyware imaginable and i would say about 90-95% will attempt to secretly install this through ActiveX (i believe if i remember correctly it once on your machine downloads a 1000 premium rate diallers on your machine in one go. Try explaining that to your phone company!. Second and third Biggest biggest worry is this Start.exe and ExploitByteVarify. EBV is on most warez sites too. When people post they have on their machine you can be pretty sure where theyve acquired it from. Diallers and Trojans are a major worry too.

I Would strongly urge you not to go to these sites at all or without firefox running. And a top quality AV like Panda or Kav.

 

If you put the sites in IE restricted zone, it will stop all cookies, activex and BHOs from downloading. IE Spyad has a separate 'adult sites' reg file that does this for you:

ADULT.REG: This file adds just over 930 "run-of-the-mill" adult sites
to the Internet Explorer Restricted sites zone. To use the
file, double-click on it to merge the contents into the
Registry. Note that this list of 930 adult sites is added
to your current Restricted sites list; it does not remove
or replace and sites or domains that are already in your
Restricted sites zone.

Spywareblaster and Spybot, as well as the main IE-Spyads reg file put other 'nasty' sites (based on what they try to do to you, not content as such) in IE restricted zone, as well as blocking specific activeX components; some of those might be porn sites.

 

I would just like to add that if you are on a slow connection do not even bother with IE-Spyad. Even the lite file will slow you down, let alone the 'full' file + adult sites.