Windows Vista Firewall

In my opinion Vistas Firewall is worthless. It only protects incoming but not outgoing. I also have a router and that does
not protect for outgoing goodies. So in addition to my router I also have Zone Alarm.
BUT don't take my word for it, go to a site run by Steve Gibson who is the Guru on security. "Gibson Research Corp.."
The amount of data there is awesome. Take a look at "Leaktest" and another. I will come back and post the full address and the other important program he has.

 

S. Gibson's web site address: www.grc.com/default.htm

The other valuable program that checks all the outgoing
ports on your Puter is "ShieldsUP".

I hope this helps somebody as it sure made me feel a bit
more secure from the guys with no more productive goals
than causing trouble for the innocent. What could be accomplished if they would put those talents to productive use.

 

Windows XP and Vista firewalls offer good enough inbound protection for people that is not worried about programs "phoning home" or about malware missed by other security programs. Also the vista firewall can be configured to offer basic outbound protection.
However if you want a firewall effective against malware you should use a third-party firewall with good leak protection but they cause more alerts and increase the boot time.

 

Thats is not correct,Vista has two way protection but by default it is off and allows all outbound,It can be configured but not an easy task.however there is a free program called vista fiirewall control which will block everything out by default.As you connect you will be prompt for options of choices. Edit Added Image

 

Thats a nice little application ,and i guess is the free version ,but i am surprised just how expensive the plus version is.Seems way overpriced to me .Wow with vat it amounts to a whopping £35.64 .
ellison

 

I've read somewhere, in SpyBot S&D forum I think, that Vista FireWall is all registry based, so it can be easilly put off by malware.

I don't really understand this, what is your opinion on this anyone?

 

yes free,I dont think its worth the price for the plus my self when there is stronger firewalls for free.however I never had much luck with any of them epecially with vista,even on my previous laptop with XP SP2 something always went wrong such as broken internet conncetion, conflics,resource consumption,slow bootups on and on,my opinion they are more trouble then worth at least for me.Not so with this little app and yet still have some outbound control and behind a firewall router for inbound.

 

I thought Vista's FW was a two way FW and not one way like what XP was.

 

The Vista Firewall is a bi-directional FW with excellent protection. You have to administrate it correctly and it will protect you in addition with the other features (UAC, protected mode, network detection etc.).

Read more >>

 

I'm going to stick with the setup I have. That's one thing I hate about Microsoft. They give you a product and then proceed to cripple it. Then to uncripple it they make the correction so obtuse most people won't fool with it.
When I did Steve Gibson "Leaktest" with Vistas Firewall it got through meaning I was not protected from outgoing nonsense not wanted by me.
Then I did the "Leaktest" with Zone Alarm and I was protected without all the difficult changes to Vistas Firewall.
Really a simple programming question like "do you want
to be protected from outgoing access to the internet" click
on yes. This would eliminate all the difficult changes needed to be made by people that are not computer sophisticated.

 

Ive actually noticed that if you are in the UK ,you can pay for the plus using US dollars which then gets it for around £18...much better than £35 plus.It seems to be selling for the same price in any currency ..so basically its £27 if you pay in euros,£35 if you pay in pounds or £18 in dollars.Ive just purchased in dollars for the G/FS machine,because she wants a simple firewall like this for her vista.
ellison

 

actualy In the usa, was just a sample picture I kept on my rig for refrence, since I keep changeing programs like there going out of style.ps but thank you

 

Malware would require admin privileges to disable/bypass the built-in firewall.