Sygate personal firewall

Hi guys,

im quite a rookie when it comes to firewalls, ive just installed sygate personal firewall as ive read loads of reviews and it seemed it boiled down to either kerio 2.1.5 or sygate...ive opted for sygate, but my question is, is there any guide or tutorial to configuring sygate firewall, or is it already secure enough "as downloaded", or do i have to create any rulesets myself manually, if so what are these rulesets and how do i do it...sorry forgot to mention, im quite a cautious surfer, i do play online gaming on the MSN Game Zone, and occasionally download some music using limewire pro, really thats about all i do, except come to forums like this and castlecops etc. occasionally il go to another site here and there to find information, so based on my computer habits what would be the best way to configure sygate, if indeed it has to be configured...

Any replies would be greatly appreciated, many thanks.

(My Programs: kaspersky anti-virus personal pro/ad-aware SE/Spybot S&D/SpywareBlaster/SpywareGuard/WinPatrol 9.0/a-squared/Microsoft Antispyware/MRU Blaster/Crap Cleaner/Sygate Personal Firewall)

 

Sygate is pretty good out of the box with one exception... by default it allows server access to all apps including new ones you give permission to. This means that it's allowing inbound connections to these programs. This is not needed by most programs and should be disabled. You'll need to go into each app in the programs menu and select the advanced options and turn off the checkmark on server access for each app. If you need it turned on (if something doesn't work due to this, like p2p programs etc) then you can enable it for just that one app. Other than that, Sygate is pretty good as is. You can experiment with rules later if you like once you're more familiar with things.

 

I've been using and recommending Sygate over Zone Alarm for a LONG time. I think you'll be happy with it.

 

Also check out Filescab from www.filescab.com Nice Firewall with good ruleset which works right out of the box.

 

this is a great site for sygate noobs. king's homepage

 

*Sygate is a great firewall
If Outpost did not exsist, that is where i would be

 

eww! Scabs are icky!!!

 

Sorry should be Filesclab, sorry for the typo, scabs are indeed icky.

 

Filseclab Personal Firewall

Regards,

CrazyM

 

Arup- Why the sudden love for Filesclab? Looks like a packet filter with no application aware layer. My favorite in that category is CHX-1.

Anyone-

Is there some kind of issue with Sygate and proxies? With all the email scanning and now web scanning going on, proxies are getting to be standard equipment with most AV's.

 

Diver,

It tests out pretty good and is free and easy to setup, something that I reccomend for first time users. Did you ever get a chance to try it yourself?

Sygate has huge issues with proxies, check it out at their forum as well as at the Avast forum, web scanning has to be disabled for Sygate.

 

Sygate does not filter localhost/loopback traffic. If you use a proxy like Proxomitron, Sygate will not see applications accessing the network/Internet via the proxy, just the proxy connecting outbound. This could result in unknown/untrusted applications being able to connect outbound through the proxy without being prompted by the firewall.

Not sure how many AV's actually still establish listening connections/proxies for filtering e-mail. Many do it transparently now.

Regards,

CrazyM

 

Yep, if you use any kind of proxy software then you shouldn't use Sygate. They are aware of the problem, but don't seem to want to change it any too quickly.. Aside from that, it's a pretty good firewall...

 

ok thanks for the replies....just another couple of things if you could help please....i done a firewall test at shieldsup and im failing the following test on common ports:

Ping Reply: RECEIVED (FAILED) — Your system REPLIED to our Ping (ICMP Echo) requests, making it visible on the Internet. Most personal firewalls can be configured to block, drop, and ignore such ping requests in order to better hide systems from hackers. This is highly recommended since "Ping" is among the oldest and most common methods used to locate systems prior to further exploitation.

can sygate be configured to stop this, if so, how?....

also when i do an all service port test its showing that port 515/printer spooler is open, all other ports are stealthed, i dont know why this one is open and even if it should be, if it shouldnt be open how can i close this port..?

 

If you're running a router, turn it off there.

 

KAV 5 uses proxies for mail scanning.