Free BASIC firewall

  • Thread starter Thread starter holycow
  • Start date Start date
<snip>

|> Gets us back to the question of whether it's worth having a firewall
|> at all. I do. I use Outpost, but I give it so many permissions to
|> allow this and that I do sometimes wonder...
|
|Why? Surely you know what programs you are using.
|
|I admit all those windows service processes like LSA, gets very confusing,
|but google them out and do some reading, decide whether you want them out
|or not, in most cases, you can block them without problems.
|
|I suppose, the outwards filtering function is useful, if you are in the
|habit of running new programs, and it can tell you if one of them attempts
|to "phone home" without warning. For apps that need internet connection
|it's more tricky, you need to perhaps put it "under probation" for a while
|and do a careful check of where exactly it is connecting to.
|
|The problem, is while this allows you to catch run of the mill spyware
|(most of them!), there are many known ways of beating outward filtering
|(see various leak tests and various counters), but nothing is 100% perfect
|anyway.
|
|Chances are though, what is leaking out is probably some of the browser
|addon stuff, like googletoolbar and versious BHOs or stuff that expolit
|yourr browser, which to all intents and purposes are seen as browsers to
|your firewall. Those will happily connect out, unless you block your
|browser :)
|
|
|Aaron (my email is not munged!)
|
Yes, I understand that I have to allow those programs, but to be honest I
don't give a stuff what goes out so long as nothing comes in in the form
of spyware or virus and I have a virus checker for that.
--
Jim
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Rob said:
Try Kerio v2.1.5 instead of Tiny. Kerio is based on the Tiny code and is
better IMHO. But I would stay away from Kerion v4.x
Do a goodle and grab v2.1.5 of Kerio. It is fasr, freee and works well but
you will need to know something about firewall rules.
If you know very little about firewalls and want to get a firwall up
quickly, try ZoneAlarm free edition.
Click to expand...

Right on, Rob. Sorry Steven, Rob's right from everything I've read
on the internet. However, that comparison stuff might be getting
harder to find because Kerio 4 is out.
But I use Kerio 2.1.5 myself.
 
(e-mail address removed) says...

|Chances are though, what is leaking out is probably some of the
|browser addon stuff, like googletoolbar and versious BHOs or stuff
|that expolit yourr browser, which to all intents and purposes are seen
|as browsers to your firewall. Those will happily connect out, unless
|you block your browser :)
|
|
|Aaron (my email is not munged!)
|
Yes, I understand that I have to allow those programs, but to be
honest I don't give a stuff what goes out so long
Click to expand...

you don't mind if something reports about your internet habits, captures
your passwords etc?
as nothing comes in
in the form of spyware or virus and I have a virus checker for that.
Click to expand...

Well if that's the case, then you should be happy with the XP firewall,
or using nothing at all while ensuring all ports are closed. That's a
acceptable philisophy i guess if you can be sure nothing malicious gets
downloaded or installed.




Aaron (my email is not munged!)
 
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