looking for a good firewall for home use

[drednox]

hi

i am currently runing the Black Ice Defender firewall, which i like quite a bit except when it occasionally fails to connect to the Black Ice Service.

so i need a good firewall for backup. looking for something simple and most of all reliable.

reliability and compatibility (not crashing or causing any other type of drama on my rig) are 1st priorities.

so who has what experiences, suggestions or comments.


BTW, since this is a backup it needs to be free or close to it. nothing pricey.



thanks

 

[theAnimal]

Zonealarm and Kerio both offer good free versions of their firewalls.

 

[AngryKid]

I hear Tiny Personal Firewall and Kerio are good.

 

[RVN]

Zone Alarm Pro is the way to go!

 

[redshadow]

I've had a very good experience with Norton Internet Security 2002/2003. You can customize any aspect of the setup that you need, and along with Norton AntiVirus, I've had zero problems or intrusions for the past year (my machine's online 24/7)...mind you, I see from the logs that my machine gets attacked...just nothing happens...any outside attacker won't even know your machine exists 'cause it doesn't even return pings...

anyway, hope this helps,
RedShadow

 

[PowerEngineer]

I've also been using Norton Internet Security 2001 on my W2K Pro machine and Internet Security 2003 on the XP Pro machine. One factor for me is the parental controls, which are pretty good (although I find that some inappropriate websites aren't on their exclusion lists). Probably not a factor for drednox (and it isn't exactly cheap either).

A new problem I've been seeing with Internet Security 2003 is that it registers a lot of "invalid TCP flags" and "mismatching TCP flags" conditions (or something like that) that it interprets as a possible attack. I'm not exactly sure what these are, but I've traced them back to many legit sites, including Microsoft and Yahoo. The problem is that repeated "attacks" cause Internet Security to block traffic to/from the percieved attacker for 30 minutes. So suddenly I get the attack message and then the site I'm browsing goes dead! I finally decided to just turn these two "rules" off under the intrusion section. I'd be curious to know if anyone else has experienced this problem, and if there's a better fix for it.

Thanks!

 

[ShawnD1]

I really like Sygate Personal Firewall, it's fantastic. It blocks Code Red from reaching me on a regular basis (mostly from South America).

I couldn't even get ZA and Kerio to work. ZA would install but was never able to start its 'TrueVector' service. Kerio has problem with some buffer or something like that.

 

[dighn]

kerio is the best if you know what you are doing

 

[DaveSimmons]

For basic protection against incoming attacks like the blaster worm, any $20-30 Hot Deal hardware router box will work fine and has the advantages of not needing any software install and letting you share the connection with other PCs. Amazon has a $25 (after rebate) netgear wired + wireless.

 

[VicodiN]

Been using Sygate for about 2 years now without a hitch. Zone Alarms good too, but Im not one to pay for things.

 

[GhettoFob]

Originally posted by: dighn
kerio is the best if you know what you are doing

 

[kapog]

PCCillin is user friendly and hasn't let me down yet. And I've been getting hacked for 2 months now .

 

[QueHuong]

I've been using Kerio, but lately it's really annoying me. All of my settings would get deleted, and I would have to set up the rules for every programs that access the internet again.

 

[Odoacer]

I used zonealarm (the free version i think) before I got my router, and it was great. That being said, I'd still opt for the router - it'll protect your whole network, and it doesn't eat up any cpu cycles.