My first laptop

[Samury]

I'll finally be acquiring my first laptop after decades of desktop use (and tinkering), and I'm a bit weary of firewall protection on it. I've become quite lethargic after all these years behind a nice, safe(ish) hardware firewall. Now, however, I'm going to be venturing into the world of wifi and slutty networks, as we used to refer to them. Am I safe behind 7's built-in firewall, or should I install another one, just to be sure I'm not attached to a network with unsavory types?

This laptop will be used on a college campus, so I don't doubt for a second that the network's users will be far smarter than its admins. So is 7 enough, or should I add more? I'll be using Avast and Spybot alongside 7, btw.

 

[Lateralus]

This should really be in the Networking & Security forum (not a big deal but you might get more replies there).

I'm not sure how 7's firewall ranks in comparison to others, but I've personally had no problems with it (I'm also behind a router with a firewall). If you're really worried about it, Comodo's firewall is probably the best option as it offers more protection than just about any other (including free or paid versions). It's also lightweight, but is extremely verbose until you configure it for your applications.

See this page for more details. It's been a while since I looked at it, and I now see that PC Tools is ranked up there with Comodo...nice.

 

[ProfessorKaos64]

I would second a move to the security forum. To comment on your post, Windows Firewall is decent for general use, but you mention "slutty" networks, so that may be quite scary indeed I used Kaspersky Suite for a while , now just the Antivirus portion. As long as you are a safe user on campus and don't transmit sensitive info on the web on an open connection. If you just need a firewall Commodo is nice as said above, don't take the bait for Zone Alarm, its very intrusive and rather annoying.

 

[biiscit]

To be honest, as long as you don't do anything stupid, windows's built in firewall should be enough. Get yourself a good AV suite and you should be set.