Any freeware portable firewal! recommandation ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Antoine
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A

Antoine

Hi all,

I am looking for any recommendation concerning a "mostly portable" firewall meaning :

1) the firewall program would ideally be stored in a single folder
2) all the settings would be stored in a single folder (no setting stored in the registry )
3) the program could be launched by executing a simple .exe file

in order to put in on an usb stick and share it between all my computers.

Thanks in advance.
 
if no one suggests a portable solution for you then....

if you have xp use the built in firewall...
 
Hello Thorsten,

Thanks for your reply.
but why should it be portable? If you take it from one system to
another many settings are useless because they refer to other
programs (location, version, ...). A firewall is something that
every system should have itself, not something you should take on
a trip.
Click to expand...

This is a very sensible remark in the general situation.

I tend to use only portable applications. Thus, nearly *all * my applications can be stored on a
movable usb stick. In such a situation, a firewall would ideally be just another portable
application (same remark for an antivirus) and its rules would be defined upon the portable
applications located on the usb stick and not machine-dependant.

The setting of such a firewall would be an "only trusted apps mode" ie :

Applications on the usb stick (+ some windows .dlls) : allowed according to rules
Applications not on the usb stick : denied
Outpost stores all it's settings in a file within it's folder,
but I strongly doubt it will work without installation. A
firewall is something working deeply inside system, there will
always (?) be some driver/library files, services that need to
run with windows startup.
Click to expand...

OT : I had been providing the official french translation of Outpost(tm) pro for 5 years (and been
rewarded with a free licence of the pro copy) when Agnitum(tm) suddenly stopped, with no
warning and no information, arguing, when I asked, that the translation process needed to be
done by professionals ; the first french pro version translated by these professionals was quite
poor. So, I will definitely never use any Agnitum(tm) product anymore.
 
This is a very sensible remark in the general situation.

I tend to use only portable applications. Thus, nearly *all * my applications can be stored on a
movable usb stick. In such a situation, a firewall would ideally be just another portable
application (same remark for an antivirus) and its rules would be defined upon the portable
applications located on the usb stick and not machine-dependant.
Click to expand...

The major problem with firewalls, as the reply to your OP mentioned is
that for them to be effective, they generally need to be a system level
driver/service. I have never come across one on a modern OS (2K/XP)
that doesn't require some kind of driver install and possible reboot.
It would be very hard to make this portable - maybe possible to install
the service running from the USB stick and remove it after use to
prevent problems for other users of the system but hardly fitting what
seems to be the general definition of portable used by most people.

One alternative would be perhaps to take a small embedded OS with you on
the stick - for example, Damn Small Linux can run in Windows using a
QEMU. This would give you a firewalled and secure/clean web
browser/email combination etc install inside Windows, even if the
Windows install you find yourself using is attacked.

Neither this method nor a firewall would protect you from keyloggers,
which I consider to be more of a problem for users of untrusted machines
- it's all very well bringing your own trusted software, but if every
keystroke you make is logged on that machine for later collection, you
gain nothing by having a firewall available... I would concentrate on
finding portable security tools to ensure the machine you are about to
use is clean, rather than worrying about firewalling it for the short
time you will use it.

HTH
 
but why should it be portable? If you take it from one system to
another many settings are useless because they refer to other
programs (location, version, ...). A firewall is something that
every system should have itself, not something you should take on
a trip.
Click to expand...

This is commercial software, so it's semi-OT, but as a demonstration of
concept: there is a product called Kensington Personal Firewall. I've
never used it, and have actually never seen it in a store, so take these
comments with a grain of salt. As described, it is a portable firewall
sold pre-loaded on a USB drive. It is supposed to be plug and play for use
on a machine that isn't your own and has unknown protection (e.g. a kiosk
or public computer).
 
Ben said:
The major problem with firewalls, as the reply to your OP
mentioned is that for them to be effective, they generally need to
be a system level driver/service. I have never come across one on
a modern OS (2K/XP) that doesn't require some kind of driver
install and possible reboot. It would be very hard to make this
portable - maybe possible to install the service running from the
USB stick and remove it after use to prevent problems for other
users of the system but hardly fitting what seems to be the
general definition of portable used by most people.
Click to expand...

That is also what I thought but I wanted to be sure there wasn't any portable firewall. Actually, I
could also have asked for a portable antivirus and I guess your answer (low level installation,
driver/service) would also have been right.
One alternative would be perhaps to take a small embedded OS with
you on the stick - for example, Damn Small Linux can run in
Windows using a QEMU. This would give you a firewalled and
secure/clean web browser/email combination etc install inside
Windows, even if the Windows install you find yourself using is
attacked.
Click to expand...

That is an idea I hadn't thought of. Thanks ! The "problem" is that many of my portable
applications are internet-dependant : portable firefox (ok, there is a probably a linux based
version), portable thunderbird (ditto) but xnews, screamer-radio, poptray, some seo tools,
etc... are windows-only applications.
Neither this method nor a firewall would protect you from
keyloggers, which I consider to be more of a problem for users of
untrusted machines - it's all very well bringing your own trusted
software, but if every keystroke you make is logged on that
machine for later collection, you gain nothing by having a
firewall available...
Click to expand...

Very bright remark, thanks. Actually, my usb-package is first and foremost intended to my
own machines (4) or the corporate ones (2), that is to say relatively trustable machines :) The
idea behind by initial question was especially to spare time avoiding tuning applications 6
times instead of once.
I would concentrate on finding portable
security tools to ensure the machine you are about to use is
clean, rather than worrying about firewalling it for the short
time you will use it.
Click to expand...

Yes, I think I understand : at least, a kind of "tunnelling all the connections" and ideally have
one's own (small) portable OS so as to avoid keylogging.
HTH
Click to expand...

It does. Many thanks Ben.
 
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