What's the best free firewall for Windows 98 (Win9x/ME)?

The subject says it all: What's the best free firewall for Windows 98 (Win9x/ME)?

The thing that prompted me to ask this question is that I am currently using Kerio PF 2.1.5, and I'd like to switch to something a little more modern. I was going to give Kerio PF 4.2.x a try, but then I saw that it only works on Windows 2000/XP.

Phil

 

2 great firewalls - Netveda SafetyNet and Filseclab, both work on Windows 98
http://www.netveda.com/consumer/safetynet.htm
http://www.filseclab.com/eng/products/firewall.htm

 

NetVeda is slightly heavy, and Filseclab is OK except for the small ads.....Both work well IMO

 

Actually at 6mb and max CPU of 4% average, NetVeda is lighter than Filseclab, however the later has much better rule making but no component control which NetVeda features.

 

I tried NetVeda back in June and had some problems with it. It may not have been NetVeda's fault, though. There could be something weird about my system, or maybe I didn't completely uninstall Sygate before installing NetVeda. I am going to try it again on a clean system to see how it behaves.

Does anyone know how well either of these work when there is a local proxy in use? I am referring to something like Proxomitron or the web-filtering component of AVAST.

Phil

 

Sygate tends to leave behind some NDIS drivers, there is a detailed explanation of clean un-install of Sygate at their forum.

I faced some problems with NetVeda and Avast as well even though I made a rule for Avast, however others with Avast haven't faced my problems so could be machine specific.

 

Hi pcalver

I'm running Jetico on XP having switched from kerio 2.15 about a month ago. Jetico says it work with 98/ME but I haven't tried that.

Since your used to a rules based firewall, I think you'll like it, I know I do. I converted my kerio rules over without to much hassle.

I also use Proxomitron and was able to create the necessary loopback rules to prevent unauthorized programs from accessing it. The loopback rules were a bit of pain, the invert port # doesn't work in the application table rules, but an email I got from said they would fix this in the next Major release.

As for memory usage, it seems light to me, varies between 3-7M.

All in all, I'm happy with it and haven't looked back. I've decided I like running a firewall that is supported by the vendor.

HTH

Mike

 

Hi Mike (z12),

I was going to try Jetico at one time (a few months ago), but I saw several reports of people experiencing BSODs on Win9x. So I decided to avoid it for the time being. I will probably try it at some point, though.

Phil