Does a perfect Firewall exist???

M

Makave7i Tha Don

Gawd
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Oct 1, 2004
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I'm looking for a decent firewall for my new system. I realize it comes with nvidia's own firewall as i have an A8N-Sli Deluxe. But i have read that not alot of people care for nvidia's firewall. Now does a firewall exist that will protect me from viruses and the like while still allowing me to download/upload things to people. I have been through norton's products before, and they never allowed me to do what i wanted without warnings everywhere and having to manually stop it to accomplish an upload or download. It also takes up alot of system resources. Does anybody have a good solution out there?

i appreciate any help or just general insight



Eric
 
The perfect firewall would require a perfect user, as a firewall is adaptive to the user. What I need a firewall to do, for example, is not the same as what you need it to do.

Fuck it. I need a nap, that was way to deep. Short answer: no.
 
The perfect firewall is an unplugged network cable.

Smart user habits are just as important as the firewall itself. I think, for home use, a router is fully sufficient, as are any basic software firewalls (XP's included). None of them have gaping security holes; it's just a question of additional options and preference.
 
That unplugged cable suggestion is very funny but true. There is never a 100% guarentee on anything in the computer world but we surely get close.
 
It's also used. Ultra secure networks simply aren't connected to the Internet.
 
Zonealarm may not be perfect but I think it's good enough and the nags can be turned off.
 
My old networking professor basically taught us the same thing. The only way to be 100% secure is to unplug the network cable.
 
The only way to be 100% secure is to unplug it from the network and not let anyone use it.

Between social engineering(hacking by getting people to trust you and give you information you shouldn't have) and user stupidity, any computer that is used has potential security holes. But ZoneAlarm, nVidia's firewall, or if lazy even Window's firewall or a router will still help. I did notice some slowdown with the nVidia firewall on my Lanparty 250gb, so i'd probably recomend ZoneAlarm.
 
I have no idea why people are bitching about the Nvidia Firewall... I heard some people had problems during installation, but I have it up and running and it works fine.

I do not have proof for this, but I am pretty sure that it uses less CPU resources than any software firewall because it is hardware based.

It also as good flexibilty, sometimes if you have your firewall setting to high some apps are blocked, but you can just right click on the icon and set it to like medium protection or something and it lets all internal requests out, but still blocks unknown packets.
 
ZA is pretty basic, it will most likely work for what you want. I like Kerio, but it's started adding all these extra features I don't really need, but there are also apparent issues with teh older version not being as secure, but the older version also does not have the added features I don't need. I would say Kerio and turn all the extra stuff off. Although recently I have had issues with Kerio not remembering when I have allowed a program to launch or access the net and I can't tell if it's a fault on Kerios part or some of the programs.
 
DR_K13
I bet you will say that Sygate is the best firewall for windows.
Were you threating me? :)
 
Kerio Personal Firewall2
still to be found if you look hard enough
a good rule based freeware firewall ;)

I agree with the unplugged cable
circumventing AV's and firewalls is largely what malware is about these days
so is but a component in your defense suite
I also run a hardware NAT

and I wouldnt trust any "automated" firewall
learn how to weild a rule based firewall
 
J-Mag said:
I have no idea why people are bitching about the Nvidia Firewall... I heard some people had problems during installation, but I have it up and running and it works fine.

I do not have proof for this, but I am pretty sure that it uses less CPU resources than any software firewall because it is hardware based.

It also as good flexibilty, sometimes if you have your firewall setting to high some apps are blocked, but you can just right click on the icon and set it to like medium protection or something and it lets all internal requests out, but still blocks unknown packets.
Click to expand...


The problem i was having with mine was that eventually it would take forever to load webpages. Without looking too far into it(i'll get to it sometime...) i found that if i quickly disabled it, then turned it back on everything would be normal again. I think it might have something to do with the university network, like the firewall blocking packets so the network 'forgets' that i'm there. Like I said though, i didn't spend much time messing with it.
 
XOR != OR said:
The perfect firewall would require a perfect user,
Click to expand...

IF there were perfect users, then there would not be people that write mallicius progs to exploit things and thus no need for a firewall.

But asside from that wouldn't perfect programs result in no need for a firewall. If a program did not have an exploitable bug from a particular port, then it doesn't matter what is chucked at that port (and thus the listening program) it wouldn't do anything with that data
 
I highly suggest Sygate Pro, if you know what you are doing and care to write good and strong custom rulesets. It also is the "smartest" of the firewalls I've used. If you're looking for free I concur with Czar about Kerio.
 
I generally find that my router is sufficient. Intelligent Internet habits will protect you more than software can
 
I use tiny personal firewall and it seems to catch everything. It is now called kerio I believe
 
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