Software and Applications

[Walker]

I've made the jump to Windows 7 from XP on my lappy, and so far it is going pretty well. The only thing I miss so far is an (easy to configure) outbound firewall. As far as I can tell, Zone Alarm basic does not yet work under Win7.  It seems that their high end offering works with 7, but I have no interest in the extra bloat tools that come with that.

Looking around the web, I found that the firewall built in to Vista and 7 has outbound filtering ability which is disabled by default.  Once enabled, It seems that it works quite well, but, I have to manually add a rule for each program that I want to give access to.  This is way too time consuming and I fear that it will become unmanageble once I have all of my software on there.  Is there a way to get it to pop up a "Do you want to allow this program" notification each time it detects a new program trying to create an outbound connection (similar to what ZoneAlarm does)?

Alternatively, is there another basic (free, no bloat) firewall that performs similarly to ZoneAlarm that already works with Windows 7?

Thanks.

[powwow71]

I use Comodo firewall...its free for personal use...and free or not, its probably one of the best firewalls available on the market (if not THE best)

It also has antivirus built in.

It is annoying at first because you get a million popups to allow this or allow that...but after a few days, you should be good!

Here...just download the free version:

http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/

[Callred]

Thanks Pow, I was thinking of a system for my new x64 build. I'm testing it out on my workstation here at the office first to see what I think. So far it doesn't hit the performance very hard even though I'm running a full scan as I write and have the firewall running too. It's already allowed me to block an IP address I picked up (outbound) by loading a tool for Firefox and then unloaded it. The tag to their server wouldn''t go away though until I blocked it.

[powwow71]

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Callred wrote:
Thanks Pow, I was thinking of a system for my new x64 build. I'm testing it out on my workstation here at the office first to see what I think. So far it doesn't hit the performance very hard even though I'm running a full scan as I write and have the firewall running too. It's already allowed me to block an IP address I picked up (outbound) by loading a tool for Firefox and then unloaded it. The tag to their server wouldn''t go away though until I blocked it.

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comodo is apparently one of the best intrusion detectors. You'll get a popup message for everything though...so it can annoying. I like it though because I want to know everything that is going on.

HINT: If you are installing something, set it to INSTALLER mode so you don't have to click the "allow" a million times.

Another thing I found out is that the anti-virus is top notch too. (just don't set your heuristic level too high or everything will be suspicious lol).

Comodo anti-virus and firewall plus windows defender should be good enough!!

[Walker]

Thanks for the advice.  I've thought about trying Comodo for a while, but hadn't really had a reason to switch.  It has been nice so far, and the install mode has kept if from being obnoxious as I get my system set up.

[Transco901]

I've never really thought to use a firewall other than the one that comes with Windows (and the one built into my router).  Am I playing with fire?  I don't think so.  I guess it 's all about how high you want to build 'that wall'. 

[powwow71]

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Transco901 wrote:

I've never really thought to use a firewall other than the one that comes with Windows (and the one built into my router).  Am I playing with fire?  I don't think so.  I guess it 's all about how high you want to build 'that wall'. 

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welll, you're hidden from the net for things that want to come into your network, but you have no outbound protection. Plus the comodo (and I assume most modern firewalls) also detect internal intrusions like when apps or processes want to do something to your computer. You don't get any of that with the window's firewall and definitely not with your hardware firewall

[powwow71]

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Walker wrote:

Thanks for the advice.  I've thought about trying Comodo for a while, but hadn't really had a reason to switch.  It has been nice so far, and the install mode has kept if from being obnoxious as I get my system set up.

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yes, LOL...with comodo, the install mode is your friend!!