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Best Commercial Firewall?

Mark.J

Administrator
Staff member
ISPreview Team
I've been using a combination of routers and software (Outpost) firewalls for sometime now, I'm just wondering whether there's a better software alternative to Outpost that costs around the $20 (£15) price mark and is, perhaps, even better?

FYI - The software firewall is more for my laptop where, given my own situation when remote working, big routers are out of the question.
 
I've been using ZoneLabs ZoneAlarm for a couple of years now and it seems to work very well.

There is a free version available but I'd recommend you go for the Pro version and get a /me coughs crack.

Hope this helps.
 
I've had too many problems with ZoneAlarm in the past and wouldn't touch them again.
 
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I use Sygate which works well. It also receives much praise in the various forums I peruse through.

I also had problems with Zone Alarm when I tried it.
 
Windows XP SP2 has a great little firewall built in. Can be problematic to certain other apps but it is completely free providing you have a legal copy of Win XP.

need to know more email antb666@boltblue.com
 
i used to use mcafee( that i got free with aol broadband) but i used to get BSOD with it and i knew it was mcafee as it had some error at the bottom.....

changed to sygate and no problems anymore
 
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I'm currently using Zonealarm Pro and don't have any problems with it.
The XP sp2 firewall is apparently designed to be easy to programaticatly control even from a script, so I'm sure trojans will shortly include code to deactivate it as standard.

I've use the free version of sygate and its quite good but had very high CPU usage on my PC, as I recall you need to activate "DLL authentication" to provide reasonable outbound protection.

I've also used Kerio (free for personal use- web filtering is disabled after a month) http://www.kerio.co.uk/kpf_home.html

This has an Application Integrity option - as I recall it trys to defeat trojans by monitoring all programs for modifications and has rules to restrict programs using other programs and modules etc. (whether they use the net or not) - seemed promising but the version I tried took a lot of configuring (this may have improved - I tried a early release).

As far as the standard firewall features and security go I don't think there is a great deal of difference between the lot of 'em

There is a 3rd party program available (forget the name) which claims to be able to prevent rogue software from shutting down firewalls and antivirus software.
 
Mel said:
I'm currently using Zonealarm Pro and don't have any problems with it.
The XP sp2 firewall is apparently designed to be easy to programaticatly control even from a script, so I'm sure trojans will shortly include code to deactivate it as standard.

I've use the free version of sygate and its quite good but had very high CPU usage on my PC, as I recall you need to activate "DLL authentication" to provide reasonable outbound protection.

I've also used Kerio (free for personal use- web filtering is disabled after a month) http://www.kerio.co.uk/kpf_home.html

This has an Application Integrity option - as I recall it trys to defeat trojans by monitoring all programs for modifications and has rules to restrict programs using other programs and modules etc. (whether they use the net or not) - seemed promising but the version I tried took a lot of configuring (this may have improved - I tried a early release).

As far as the standard firewall features and security go I don't think there is a great deal of difference between the lot of 'em

There is a 3rd party program available (forget the name) which claims to be able to prevent rogue software from shutting down firewalls and antivirus software.


The built in XP firewall is very very basic & should not be relied upon. Personally I would say Zone Alarm Pro or Blackice bother easy to install and about as easy as it can be to setup. Neither should cause any problems. Unless you really know what you are doing its best to stick to the automatic setup or you will end up blocking things that should not be blocked & find something on your system does not work.
 
I use advanced rules and a programme called Blocklist to update them. The thing is the latest rules block ispreview!

I need to figure out what to do to stop this occuring.
 
I have switched to Outpost with its blockpost. The latest ips to block include 212.227.127.74 - This is ispreview!

Anyway lets see how Outpost goes.
 
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It started okay and then screwed connection to express, explorer etc etc. I had to remove and put sygate back on. Shame really as I hate putting advanced rules in 1 at a time.
 
i'd use zone alarm (free version), or zone alarm pro(upgraded free version - but charged for).... or maybe norton firewall if i wanted a complete software package - including antivirus and so forth - best to get software that understands each other...
 
Re-installed Outpost 2 days ago - Well I had to work out the problem.

I really like the extras i.e. ads blocker, attachment filter and Blockpost .

All running really well :)
 
have used sygate pro,zone alarm(free and pro) and find outpost to be better than both for me ,next couple of months 2.5 is going to be released which is supposed to pass all "leak tests"(no current firewall does this!)
Not tried it but LooknStop is supposed to be very good
 
I have been using Norton's for 2 years with no worries up until 2 weeks ago.
Now every time I connect to the Internet, I have to go into the firewall and click on default before I can open my mail or any browsers. Even if I never changed the settings since I last connected.
Always liked Zonealarm before now and will be going back ASAP :)
 
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I dont use one, I rely on my router to do it all. Possibly a bit risky, but when I had zonealarm running for about a week, I didnt have one thing show up when it was behind my router.

I dont like the slowdown it makes on my system, so when I reinstalled I didnt out one on. Havent had a problem yet.
 
I also only use the router to block all known ports that worms use plus any I never use.
I haven't had any problems in over 2 years.
 
A couple of recent exploits have used port 80 (e.g. download.Ject and Ibiza). Using a packet filtering device would not have worked - unless you fancy blocking port 80 and your web access.

Just a thought.
 
These (download.Ject and Ibiza) aren't really port 80 exploits (that would be an exploit against the web server), but problems with Internet Explorer which would not be functioning on port 80 locally.
 
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