Commercial Firewall(s) and MS' XP version

[Chuck---]

Hi Experts:

1) My faithful Zone Alarm Free, after years, went 'True Vector' belly up
with a new version install;
2) Sygate won't install at all;
3) Kerio installed, but locks me out of everything (FAQ needs study).

In the meantime, I have the MS built-in XP firewall, (and AVG) defending me
from Evil Doers. I haven't noticed much discussion on this XP feature here.
Am I fairly well protected, or should I try harder on the others?

A check shows that my ports are stealthed (good), but I don't get any
feedback (bad), like the reports ZA gave me, or that it is working at all.
All my security patches are current. Am I just suffering from a lack of
feedback gratification and should not be concerned?

Your advice please. Thanks, Chuck---

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Hi Experts:

1) My faithful Zone Alarm Free, after years, went 'True Vector' belly up
with a new version install;
2) Sygate won't install at all;
3) Kerio installed, but locks me out of everything (FAQ needs study).

In the meantime, I have the MS built-in XP firewall, (and AVG) defending me
from Evil Doers. I haven't noticed much discussion on this XP feature here.
Am I fairly well protected, or should I try harder on the others?

A check shows that my ports are stealthed (good), but I don't get any
feedback (bad), like the reports ZA gave me, or that it is working at all.
All my security patches are current. Am I just suffering from a lack of
feedback gratification and should not be concerned?

Your advice please. Thanks, Chuck---

WinXP's built-in firewall is adequate at stopping incoming attacks,
and hiding your ports from probes. What WinXP SP2's firewall does not
do, is provide an important additional layer of protection by informing
you about any Trojans or spyware that you (or someone else using your
computer) might download and install inadvertently. It doesn't monitor
out-going network traffic at all, other than to check for IP-spoofing,
much less block (or at even ask you about) the bad or the questionable
out-going signals. It assumes that any application you have on your
hard drive is there because you want it there, and therefore has your
"permission" to access the Internet. Further, because the Windows
Firewall is a "stateful" firewall, it will also assume that any incoming
traffic that's a direct response to a Trojan's or spyware's out-going
signal is also authorized.

ZoneAlarm, Kerio, or Sygate are all much better than WinXP's
built-in firewall, in that they do provide that extra layer of
protection, are much more easily configured, and have free versions
readily available for downloading. Even the commercially available
Symantec's Norton Personal Firewall provides superior protection,
although it does take a heavier toll of system performance then do
ZoneAlarm or Sygate.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH

 

[Chuck---]

WinXP's built-in firewall is adequate at stopping incoming attacks, and
hiding your ports from probes. What WinXP SP2's firewall does not do, is
provide an important additional layer of protection by informing you about
any Trojans or spyware that you (or someone else using your computer)
might download and install inadvertently. It doesn't monitor out-going
network traffic at all, other than to check for IP-spoofing, much less
block (or at even ask you about) the bad or the questionable out-going
signals. It assumes that any application you have on your hard drive is
there because you want it there, and therefore has your "permission" to
access the Internet. Further, because the Windows Firewall is a
"stateful" firewall, it will also assume that any incoming traffic that's
a direct response to a Trojan's or spyware's out-going signal is also
authorized.

ZoneAlarm, Kerio, or Sygate are all much better than WinXP's built-in
firewall, in that they do provide that extra layer of protection, are much
more easily configured, and have free versions readily available for
downloading. Even the commercially available Symantec's Norton Personal
Firewall provides superior protection, although it does take a heavier
toll of system performance then do ZoneAlarm or Sygate.
Bruce Chambers
Help us help you:

Bruce - Thanks for the information. My confidence level with the MS firewall
is set at Medium.. I'm doing a Trial with F-Prot - it installed without
hassle unlike the others I mentioned, and the Icelanders have been in
business for as long as I can remember and are fairly reliable. Sure, what
else does one have to do in Iceland but chase viruses? ..)

Thanks again, Chuck---

 

[Jon Phipps]

I wonder if he is trying to install zonealarm with the xp firewall active, I
have had no luck in this instance. I just installed the latest zone pro and
had no problems on my XP Pro sp2 laptop, btw the other defense force members
are Ewido, Microsoft and spybot resident scanners, Norton AV and for
disaster recovery a batchfile run from safemode command promt that runs
mcafee command line and spybot command line then reboots the system

Jon

 

[Guest]

I've been running ZoneAlarmPro 6.1.737 under WinXP.
My AV is NOD32 2.50.25.
PCMag StartupCopPro 2.03 provides an additional layer.
All three of those seem to play nicely together.

Lately I added PCToolsSoftware SpywareDoctor 3.2.2.417,
but am less sure it is interacting nicely with everything else.
It appears to have slowed down Internet Explorer.
StartupCopPro doesn't seem to approve of SpywareDoctor using ctfmon.exe.

I wonder if he is trying to install zonealarm with the xp firewall active, I
have had no luck in this instance. I just installed the latest zone pro and
had no problems on my XP Pro sp2 laptop, btw the other defense force members
are Ewido, Microsoft and spybot resident scanners, Norton AV and for
disaster recovery a batchfile run from safemode command promt that runs
mcafee command line and spybot command line then reboots the system

Jon

....