The Definitive "BEST FIREWALL" thread

[MxxCon]

i'm so sick of these threads poping up every single week. so here's the one and only thread you should need untill the end of your life. moderator can modify poll entries to update.

BEST FIREWALL

[Borbus]

Zonelalarm Pro

Does anybody know why it always "phones home"?

[SimplyPotatoes]

ya dont have it autoupdate

[alpoinacan]

Hi,

YES, it is checking for updates. You can turn this

off if you like and do a manual update.

As far as firewalls go, if you like to fiddle with every

setting, try out Outpost.

If you want to set and forget, Zone Alarm Pro.

If you are really paranoid, try Kerio.

[uniacidz]

Zonelalarm Pro

Does anybody know why it always "phones home"?

Me too.

Maybe you have it to set to Auto check for updates?

[Spyder Veteran]

merged

[Gromvar]

I use Kerio 2.1.5. I like it because it's small and very customizable. It doesn't have flashy graphics or aqua gui ,but I don't need that. It does it's job and sits in the background like it should.

[Mostly Corporial]

Switched to Sygate personal 5.5 lastweek from Kerio 2.1.5 and damn what a mistake :angry:

Back using Kerio 2.1.5 again... Sygate was sorta nice but a resource hog and seemed go apesh*t easily.

Long live Kerio 2.1.5 :)

[Abracanabra]

PERSONALY, I way prefer Agnitum Outost Firewall.

[midway40]

Outpost Pro 2.0 here. I tried ZA a couple of times, the last time for some reason it messed up my sound card! I had to reinstall it. Have no idea what that was about! :huh:

[DreamweaverN]

I have router based firewall but if I used a software one it would be Outpost as it is suppose to be the best there is (tests have shown this).

[Samoa]

Kerio PF. (Y)

ZoneAlarm sucks, IMO. (N)

[Godzilla]

LMAO, zone alarm has most votes :laugh:

Kerio does the best job for me, zone alarm is just pathetic, more like a UI wall :blink:

And isnt kerio the new tiny or someshiz?

[Samoa]

LMAO, zone alarm has most votes :laugh:

Kerio does the best job for me, zone alarm is just pathetic, more like a UI wall :blink:

And isnt kerio the new tiny or someshiz?

Tiny PF became Kerio PF...

but Tiny as a company still exists? :huh:

[dewy]

any *nix solution :yes:

[PseudoRandomDragon]

LMAO, zone alarm has most votes :laugh:

Kerio does the best job for me, zone alarm is just pathetic, more like a UI wall :blink:

And isnt kerio the new tiny or someshiz?

You say ZA is pathetic.... but it has the most votes. Hmmm, prehapse you are wrong?

[Tech_8356]

NIS04 coupled with ZA Pro for me :D

[cbosdell]

defenatily kerio. I tried zone alarm once and it just popped up in my face with this big ad with some fancy ui that i dont want or need.

Kerio does the job and only uses about 5 megs ram.

[davegod75]

smoothwall (linux)

is way better than all these

www.smoothwall.org

[Hidea]

Outpost Firewall PRO... great firewall.

[redFX]

Outpost firewall is THE best firewall software ou there. It catches everything and even things other firewalls don't catch. I've tried them all, believe me, and outpost was the best.

[freakyfriday]

i use the Windows XP built-in firewall

[prabha_ind]

ZA Pro 4

[Lefhark]

I use Outpost Firewall Pro 2.0.

like others said, it's the most secure software based firewall available right now, when propperly configured, that is.

Keeps all my ports stealthed and monitors progs as well as the *.dll's used by them.

On average it uses just 5mb of ram, which is the lowest ram consumption i've seen so far.

It has it's quirks too, though. One of the major ones is, that it's impossible to limit the logsize. If you use programs which create a lot of traffic, your log's size will increase to 500mb over the months running Outpost. Thats easily fixed by renaming op_data.dll to lets say op_data.dll.bak, which will prevent outpost from adding the monitored traffic to the log database.

Number two would be Sygate Firewall Pro 5.5.

Has it's probs with DNS. Tho DNS is allowed at its settings, at an auto reconnect to the net, resolving hostnames isnt possible any more all of a sudden.

This can be solved by manually creating a rule, which allows outbound connections from port 53.

Apart from that its just as good as Outpost besides one thing - it uses more ram.

Number 3 on my list is ZoneAlarm 4.5 Pro.

It's great for beginners. almost everything is preconfigured or very easy to set up.

Creating additional rules is a bit limited, but addons like the prevention personal data leakage thru html forms and cookies make up for it.

Popup blocking is a nice addon too, but Outpost does this as well, and ad blocking on top of that.

The major issue i had with this otherwise nice tool is, that over a few days of being connected to the net, creating a lot of traffic, Zone Pro started to screw up, consuming more and more ram (innitially 25mb already, adding all its processes together) and started to give me ping timeouts on irc, or disconnecting me from servers. my guess is, that the monitored data keeps piling up until Zone cant handle it any more.

Still an OK tool for people who want a firewall which doesnt leave them puzzled on how to use it.

-Lef

[Rivers]

cant be bothered to read all 7 pages...

but just wondering how many idiots have ticked other for tiny firewall not knowing that kerio is the updated new named version??

I demand a recount on the other bit cos I cant believe that there are that many ppl that think zonealarm is actually any good lol. :no:

[PseudoRandomDragon]

"I demand a recount" :rolleyes:

You are just going to have to accept the fact that ZoneAlarm is a good firewall, the same goes for Norton and Kerio. Heck, PCMag rated firewalls and Norton/ZAP came out on top. ZAP is good, deal with it.