Useful to install 3rd party firewall?

[Fokke Nauta]

Hi all,

Running W7 Pro 64b.
Until now I have relied on the W7 firewall.
With XP I ran a 3rd party firewall, Sunbelt. I was very happy with that
and got everything under control. With the W7 firewall I haven't got a
clue as to what happens. So - I have nothing under control.
Is it useful to install in W7 a 3rd party firewall again? I thought of
Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro.

Your opinion?

Thanks,

Fokke Nauta

 

[Big Steel]

Hi all,

Running W7 Pro 64b.
Until now I have relied on the W7 firewall.
With XP I ran a 3rd party firewall, Sunbelt. I was very happy with that
and got everything under control. With the W7 firewall I haven't got a
clue as to what happens. So - I have nothing under control.
Is it useful to install in W7 a 3rd party firewall again? I thought of
Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro.

Your opinion?

Figure out how to use the Windows firewall. It's not that hard and there
is plenty of documentation out there. If you want further protection
form the Internet, then get yourself a cheap NAT router and put the
computer behind it.

 

[Fokke Nauta]

Figure out how to use the Windows firewall. It's not that hard and there
is plenty of documentation out there. If you want further protection
form the Internet, then get yourself a cheap NAT router and put the
computer behind it.

OK.
Well, we are behind a router.

 

[s|b]

OK.
Well, we are behind a router.

Does it support NAT and does it have a built-in firewall?

 

[Dave \Crash\ Dummy]

Hi all,

Running W7 Pro 64b. Until now I have relied on the W7 firewall. With
XP I ran a 3rd party firewall, Sunbelt. I was very happy with that
and got everything under control. With the W7 firewall I haven't got
a clue as to what happens. So - I have nothing under control. Is it
useful to install in W7 a 3rd party firewall again? I thought of
Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro.

Once you figure out how to use it, the Windows firewall is as good as
any software firewall. Some people complain that there is no outbound
blocking by default, but you can change that, if you want. Personally, I
think blocking outbound traffic to defeat malware is like locking the
chicken coop when the fox is already sitting down to dinner.

 

[Big Steel]

OK.
Well, we are behind a router.

NAT on a router acts like a FW, and it stops unsolicited inbound
traffic to the machine behind the router.

Some 3rd party FW is buying you nothing, and Win 7 FW is fine as a
supplement to the NAT router. What you want to do is look at the router
logs if the router has logging abilities and watch inbound and outbound
traffic to/from the machines behind the router to IP(s) for dubious
connections. Win 7 FW has this logging ability too at the computer
level, which you can use a text editor to view the log.

You can stop outbound traffic with the Win 7 FW by setting a FW rule to
stop it. I am not talking about some snake-oil program control with some
3rd party personal FW solutions., but rather an actual FW rule to stop
the traffic.

You may want to look at something like Wallwatcher (free) or Syslog
Daemon that allows you to view router logs in real-time and watch all
the active traffic by all machines on your network, even go into the
history of network traffic too in the logs.

 

[Boscoe]

Hi all,

Running W7 Pro 64b.
Until now I have relied on the W7 firewall.
With XP I ran a 3rd party firewall, Sunbelt. I was very happy with that
and got everything under control. With the W7 firewall I haven't got a
clue as to what happens. So - I have nothing under control.
Is it useful to install in W7 a 3rd party firewall again? I thought of
Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro.

Your opinion?

Thanks,

Fokke Nauta

I use windows 7 Firewall Control but the free version is fairly basic
but it dues the job.

<http://www.sphinx-soft.com/Vista/order.html>

 

[Nil]

Personally, I think blocking outbound traffic to defeat
malware is like locking the chicken coop when the fox is already
sitting down to dinner.

I don't think such blocking is the important thing, it's being warned
by the firewall that such activity is happening.

I also find it useful to identify "legit" programs that phone home
without your knowledge.

 

[Paul in Houston TX]

Hi all,

Running W7 Pro 64b.
Until now I have relied on the W7 firewall.
With XP I ran a 3rd party firewall, Sunbelt. I was very happy with that
and got everything under control. With the W7 firewall I haven't got a
clue as to what happens. So - I have nothing under control.
Is it useful to install in W7 a 3rd party firewall again? I thought of
Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro.

Your opinion?

Thanks,

Fokke Nauta

All of us will have our favorites.
My 7 laptop is used only for work: spreadsheets, email, cad,
etc., however its used a lot in motels and airports.
On that machine the MS firewall is just fine.
On this XP machine I do a lot of experimenting with programs
and use an old, non-bloatware version of zone alarm. I prefer
it because it sits in the sys tray and with two clicks I can stop all
net traffic. Four clicks lets me examine nearly everything and
decide what needs to call home... or not. I have systray modem
lights on both the 7 and XP machines.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Hi all,

Running W7 Pro 64b.
Until now I have relied on the W7 firewall.
With XP I ran a 3rd party firewall, Sunbelt. I was very happy with that
and got everything under control. With the W7 firewall I haven't got a
clue as to what happens. So - I have nothing under control.
Is it useful to install in W7 a 3rd party firewall again? I thought of
Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro.

Your opinion?

I used to use ZoneAlarm in the olden days, I mean even pre-WinXP. That's
because that was all there was available in those days. When XP
introduced its own version of a firewall, I kept using ZA for awhile, it
did have its fine-grained tractability, which the XP firewall did not
offer. However, I eventually found that this control was unnecessary in
most home environments, and in fact ZA was getting in the way of some
legitimate programs unnecessarily.

In fact, I'd say a firewall is pretty much a redundancy these days for
most people, as most people are already behind a hardware firewall in
the form of a NAT router. The software firewall is just there to protect
you against other computers in your own network. So for example if you
have a couple of computers, and one of them is infected with a
network-based malware, then your only line of defense against it on the
other computer is your software firewall.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Fokke Nauta]

I use windows 7 Firewall Control but the free version is fairly basic
but it dues the job.

<http://www.sphinx-soft.com/Vista/order.html>

Thanks. This is a very nice application. I'm trying out the plus version
now.

 

[Fokke Nauta]

All of us will have our favorites.
My 7 laptop is used only for work: spreadsheets, email, cad,
etc., however its used a lot in motels and airports.
On that machine the MS firewall is just fine.
On this XP machine I do a lot of experimenting with programs
and use an old, non-bloatware version of zone alarm. I prefer
it because it sits in the sys tray and with two clicks I can stop all
net traffic. Four clicks lets me examine nearly everything and
decide what needs to call home... or not. I have systray modem
lights on both the 7 and XP machines.

I know Zone alarm. I tried it. I used the Sunbelt firewall on XP.

 

[Fokke Nauta]

I used to use ZoneAlarm in the olden days, I mean even pre-WinXP. That's
because that was all there was available in those days. When XP
introduced its own version of a firewall, I kept using ZA for awhile, it
did have its fine-grained tractability, which the XP firewall did not
offer. However, I eventually found that this control was unnecessary in
most home environments, and in fact ZA was getting in the way of some
legitimate programs unnecessarily.

In fact, I'd say a firewall is pretty much a redundancy these days for
most people, as most people are already behind a hardware firewall in
the form of a NAT router. The software firewall is just there to protect
you against other computers in your own network. So for example if you
have a couple of computers, and one of them is infected with a
network-based malware, then your only line of defense against it on the
other computer is your software firewall.

Yousuf Khan

I know Zone Alarm. I tried it, but went to Sunbelt firewall on my XP system.
But I'm behind a NAT router and I don't fear an attack from one of the
PC's in our LAN.

Fokke

 

[Fokke Nauta]

Hi all,

Running W7 Pro 64b.
Until now I have relied on the W7 firewall.
With XP I ran a 3rd party firewall, Sunbelt. I was very happy with that
and got everything under control. With the W7 firewall I haven't got a
clue as to what happens. So - I have nothing under control.
Is it useful to install in W7 a 3rd party firewall again? I thought of
Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro.

Your opinion?

Thanks,

Fokke Nauta

Thanks for your opinions and information.
As I am behind a NAT router with Firewall, I must be pretty safe. So no
3rd part Firewall.
Right now I'm evaluating Windows 7 Firewall Control Plus from Sphinx
Software, which I think is very useful. Thanks for the hint.

Fokke

 

[Big Steel]

Thanks for your opinions and information.
As I am behind a NAT router with Firewall, I must be pretty safe. So no
3rd part Firewall.
Right now I'm evaluating Windows 7 Firewall Control Plus from Sphinx
Software, which I think is very useful. Thanks for the hint.

Fokke

The only thing a FW protects from such as a NAT router, hardware
firewall or software firewall for the network or machine is unsolicited
inbound traffic to the network or machine.

Solicited inbound traffic is any traffic let through the FW due to a
program running on the machine behind the FW that sent out initial
outbound traffic to a site.

Solicited inbound traffic is let through the FW, and unsolicited inbound
traffic to the FW is blocked.

In addition, some snake oil application control to stop a program from
sending traffic to a site done by some 3rd party personal firewall
solutions is not a FW function.

A firewall can stop inbound or outbound traffic by port, protocol or IP.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I know Zone Alarm. I tried it, but went to Sunbelt firewall on my XP
system.
But I'm behind a NAT router and I don't fear an attack from one of the
PC's in our LAN.

Fokke

As I said, the Windows firewall should be sufficient. And it just takes
a laptop connected to a public Wi-Fi hotspot with no firewall running to
bring an infection into your home network.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Fokke Nauta]

The only thing a FW protects from such as a NAT router, hardware
firewall or software firewall for the network or machine is unsolicited
inbound traffic to the network or machine.

Solicited inbound traffic is any traffic let through the FW due to a
program running on the machine behind the FW that sent out initial
outbound traffic to a site.

Solicited inbound traffic is let through the FW, and unsolicited inbound
traffic to the FW is blocked.

In addition, some snake oil application control to stop a program from
sending traffic to a site done by some 3rd party personal firewall
solutions is not a FW function.

A firewall can stop inbound or outbound traffic by port, protocol or IP.

True.
I always like to monitor a firewall so you can see what's going on.

Fokke

 

[Fokke Nauta]

As I said, the Windows firewall should be sufficient. And it just takes
a laptop connected to a public Wi-Fi hotspot with no firewall running to
bring an infection into your home network.

Yousuf Khan

Our laptop (W7) has it's firewall too.

Fokke