(Basic?) Network security questions about firewalls (and AV)

[AncientPC]

1) How good is Norton AV? Really? Yeah I keep it updated but I worry sometimes.

2) Is ZoneAlarm the best free software firewall available? Is Tiny Personal Firewall any better? Are there any better commercial firewalls?

3) What are the advantages of having a hardware, stand-alone firewall over a software one?

4) When consumer router / switch / gateway combos brag about "internet security" they're referring to NAT, right? How secure is it actually?

 

[Matthias99]

1) Uh, pretty good? Obviously, you may still be vulnerable to very new viruses if they haven't gotten them into the definitions file yet, but that's a problem with all AV programs. They have heuristics, etc. to deal with unknown viruses, but I can't say how good they are (as I tend *not* to try infecting my machine with unknown viruses). I've never heard of complaints from people saying the program doesn't work as advertised.

2) Probably, don't know, yes. The best defense is a hardware router/firewall with SPI and/or NAT. Norton Internet Security works fairly well, in my experience, as does ZoneAlarm.

3) Reliability, ease of configuration, requires no CPU time/load on the host system(s). Also protects every system in your network equally, so you don't have to run around updating every computer if something changes in the firewall software.

4) Yes. And it's very secure, unless you've opened ports, etc. and thus created security holes. There was a thread on this last week -- search for "NAT" and you'll find it. Some of the better ones even use certain SPI techniques, but with NAT they're generally not needed as much, since it's so hard to get *anything* into the network.

 

[JackMDS]

May be this can Help.

Link to: Basic Protection for Broadband Internet Installation.

Link to: What is the Best Firewall?

Some people live by ZoneAlarm, other dislike it (myself include).

There are few more free Software Firewalls if you would like to try.

Link to: Freeware - Personal Firewalls.

I like Norton AV, however if you are looking to try more this free Anti - Virus is very popular.

Link to: AntiVir®Personal Edition.

Want to be more secure.

Once a day when you resting from "Browsing" it is a good habit to run this program.

Free Adware (Get rid of Spies, etc.): Ad-aware Standard.

 

[LordOfAll]

Also computer associates just announced they are giving away a 1 year subscription to their av software. It comes with a version of zone alarm also.

CA