Suggest A Firewall?

Dork wrote:

Your loss. ZA uses practically no resources (less than 1% on my machine) and millions of blocked access attempts speak for themselves.

Yes, attempts! But only attempts!

If your system is not infected with a virus or a trojan and has every Windows update, there is NO way such a attempt will harm your system. The only thing a software firewall does, besides blocking for example software to report the manufacturer that you’ve installed it, if you don’t want that, is telling you that a portscan or an attempt to access a trojan port is blocked. If your system hasn’t a leak there will be anyway no way that this attempt would be successfull.

What i want to say: If a trojan or some maleware didn’t open a port and made your system vulnerable, softwarefirewall notifactions are kind of useless, because they just tell you that an attempt that would anyway not not harm your system was blocked…

So if you have an updated system with a good anti-virus software and maybe an anti-spyware tool, there is really no major need of a software firewall, besides the "software tries to report the manufacturer" issue.

[quote:pv3reafl]And the BEST advice I can possibly give you about keeping your computer safe is this: be smart. Scan everything you download with a virus scanner. DON’T open suspicious E-Mails. Just delete them. [/quote:pv3reafl]

Good advice. Think, be carefull and watch out. + allways make updates.

Dork wrote:

I have a big problem with people accessing my computer, dude. I take my privacy seriously and those attempts were blocked by ZoneAlarm. No ZoneAlarm; people can watch what you do.

As i said: If you have no leak in your system (no virus, trojan or maleware), those attempts to access your system would not be successfull anyway. With or without a firewall. Do you understand that? Nobody can watch what you are doing unless you have an infected system.

I don’t need a firewall to know and be informed, that my system get’s portscanned frequently and people trying to access it bootless. No need for a notification that hacker "XYZ" tried to intrude my system. He just tried it with no success because i have a clean system.

If you are really that worried about your safety in the net, get a REAL firewall – a hardware firewall.

Had a discussion with an IT-security-specialist, who works for the goverment, and installed a hardware firewall in the doctor’s practice of my parents. In that case data-safety is a really huge issue, because medical profession in Austria are now all connected to the net and have the information of every patient stored on the pc. The conclusion of our conversation was, that the only real safe protection is a hardware firewall.

Dork wrote:

That’s not cool. It scares me. And while I admit that I am very paranoid about this kind of thing, using a firewall is a very easy thing to do, it costs almost no performance and, also important, stops outbound programs! That in itself is enough to recommend that everyone get ZoneAlarm, especially with the large number of products that now insist on phoning home.

I agree. But for my point of view, i don’t care if for example Samplitude, which i purchased 2 weeks ago, phones home and tells Magix i just installed it…. I can live with that.

Just to put a perspective on this discussion, which is fairly good by the way.

I agree, I have no doubt that an Hardware Firewall is far more secure, but I really can’t see the majority of the members here paying the money out for one, especially when that money could be spent on something more creative in terms of music creation.

I know I would rather put up with the hassle of having to format and reinstall, rather than spend money on an Hardware Firewall that could be spent on a few Waves products (or any other top end products) for the purpose of creation.

To add to the original topic, I used to have Norton, then I was told to get Zone Alarm, and I ain’t had to re-format or do anything since, unlike Norton. It is accompanied with AVG, and Spybot, and they’re all free if you wish.

Thats my bit, so carry on and keep it healthy.

armor 2 net is good

In the case of firewalls, yes windows XP with service pack 2 has one…but some people fond it can cause a few problems with your system set up.

You’d do best to try different firewalls (http://www.download.com is the best site for trials and other free software) – then find a one which suits your needs.

All the best

Richy

cant go past zonealarm 😉