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need efficient good simple firewall software

S

silvermotion

Weaksauce
Joined
Nov 2, 2002
Messages
116
plz recommend a good, efficient firewall. It doesnt have to be a free version or brand. just something that will work good.
 
windows xp sp2 firewall, basic simple outta the way... if u want to use a 3rd party, umm zone alarm is pretty good...i would not recomend norton... mcaffe, i dont have much expericene with it, so i dunno....but i just use windows....for the "Basic Simple, but works" your best bet is zone alarm...


-Kyle
 
Zone Alarm.... hands down.... get rid of windows firewall immediately..... w/ zone alarm you know EXACTLY what information is being received/transmitted to/from your pc
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Router===NAT
Click to expand...
nat and firewalls are two very different things with very different purposes. That being said, I recommend clarkconnect. Very easy to use and very configurable. And totally free.
 
Kerio 2.1.5
Sure it's a little older, but it's not bloated like norton/zonealarm etc. I also found it much easier to setup than other firewalls.
 
jpmkm said:
nat and firewalls are two very different things with very different purposes. That being said, I recommend clarkconnect. Very easy to use and very configurable. And totally free.
Click to expand...

Not two very different things.....as there several kinds of firewalls. NAT is basically a one way firewall, doesn't allow inbound traffic by default, and by default allows all outbound traffic, unless it breaks SPI rules, or other rules that you implement on those routers which support outbound rules. Usually come in the form of NAT, a "dumb" hardware firewall.

Software firewalls are generally both inbound and outbound.

My only concern is keeping my network hidden from the wildside, I have my workstations well protected, and I know what I'm doing online, where I surf is safe...only a few tech forums each day, I don't do any e-mail clients (only OWA mail to work), I run NOD32 antivirus, and online gaming. No warez P2P fetching software, no adware. So some naggy resource using software firewall will only annoy me, I know what's going out, I don't need some annoying popup reminding me what I'm trying to do.

Of the software firewalls, Sygate..Kerio..Outpost..are top ones.
 
Not two very different things.....as there several kinds of firewalls. NAT is basically a one way firewall, doesn't allow inbound traffic by default, and by default allows all outbound traffic, unless it breaks SPI rules, or other rules that you implement on those routers which support outbound rules. Usually come in the form of NAT, a "dumb" hardware firewall.

Software firewalls are generally both inbound and outbound.

My only concern is keeping my network hidden from the wildside, I have my workstations well protected, and I know what I'm doing online, where I surf is safe...only a few tech forums each day, I don't do any e-mail clients (only OWA mail to work), I run NOD32 antivirus, and online gaming. No warez P2P fetching software, no adware. So some naggy resource using software firewall will only annoy me, I know what's going out, I don't need some annoying popup reminding me what I'm trying to do.

Of the software firewalls, Sygate..Kerio..Outpost..are top ones.
Click to expand...

Excellent, we now know your daily lifestyle of surfing...Great info, I love it :)
 
See, when I think of a firewall, i think of a Cisco PIX, or a Nokia/Checkpoint Appliance. So when you ask what's a good simple firewall, I'd say an OpenBSD box running PF. (or is it ipf now?) PF was a great stateful firewall because of its simple, logical top-down ruleset. Kind of like the Checkpoint approach to things really. Linux IPCHAINS never really rubbed me the right way. Not saying it sucks, just, well, not a fan of they way it was designed.

If you had asked about a desktop firewall, well, zone labs makes some nice products. Back in the day, Black Ice (now owned by ISS) was a good product as well. Personally, I don't use any of these anymore so, my info is a little outdated, but I reccomend you look up these products if you're looking for a DESKTOP firewall.

Me, I just use my crappy Dlink router at home and call it a day. I'm not providing any services, so NAT does me just fine. I used to have a crazy ass setup with a snort-inline box, a DMZ segment, a lan segment and an 'internet' segment, all on my home DSL connection. Had a honeypot, ManHunt IDS, the whole deal. Then I realized, that my honeypot was just collecting worms, old worms, and that was boring. Not too much 0day being wasted on residential DSL address spaces, ya know? But I digress...
 
GroundNPound said:
So when you ask what's a good simple firewall, I'd say an OpenBSD box running PF. (or is it ipf now?) PF was a great stateful firewall because of its simple, logical top-down ruleset.
...
Not too much 0day being wasted on residential DSL address spaces, ya know? But I digress...
Click to expand...
It was ipf back in the pre-3.0 days, and then Darren Reed changed the license (or got into an argument, or something) and pf was written, and is still used - it's quite awesome. That's what I use on my OpenBSD gateway.

For desktops, I'd say the XP firewall is sufficient for 99% of usage.

0day itself, not wasted on residential DSL/cable lines. However, worms and especially automated rooters for botnets target DSL/cable netblocks because of the massive amount of always on, poorly secured machines. So you never know. :)
 
Malk-a-mite said:
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1631.html

Not a firewall. Never designed to firewall.
Again, NAT is not a firewall.
Click to expand...

While some people may find "IP address depletion and scaling in routing." very exciting, after a few yawns, I still maintain that, while I'm behind a router, and you're on the internet...you cannot force a request, or connection, to my machine. Hence...I'm am behind a firewall. Yes it's a "dumb" firewall, yes it's only a one way firewall...like a scupper on a boat, only blocking outside from coming in, and some even have the ever so exciting SPI, it's still a firewall.

Some people insist that "firewall" defines 2-way, and on the application layer. It's just a matter of realizing the difference, and pro's/con's of each, and what fits your needs.

I run ISA server at home at times, when I feel like dorking with it on my multi homed SBS2K3 server. So I'm familiar with that arena also.
 
What most of these home routers use by default isn't NAT anyways, it's PAT.

PAT (aka NAPT) in itself is basically a one-way firewall. If you're using PAT you likely have many machines using a single global address. Even if you had your default permission as 'permit all', you'd still need the PAT table to decide what port on the private host to forward packets to. Without that table, the router doesn't know what to do and traffic is dropped. The table is only created through outbound connections, or via static entries.

All NAT does is translate one IP to another. Given that, if you were to change the default permissions on your implementation to 'permit all', you would no longer have your dumb firewall. You can have one-to-one or many-to-many, static or dynamic NAT. NAT in itself is not a firewall, it's the way it is implemented that can make it one.

Remember:
NAT = one to one, or many to many
PAT = one to many

I hate the way the commodity router market has butchered the NAT acronym. It's hard to remember when talking to a 'home user' to say NAT instead of PAT, because they look at you and cock their head like a confused dog the second you say PAT. I guess NAT is a more glamorous name or something.
 
Boscoh said:
I guess NAT is a more glamorous name or something.
Click to expand...

I guess the marketing trying the old KISS method (Keep It Simple Stupid)...because it depends who's book you follow on how you describe NAT, or PAT (more properly..NAPT...Network Address Port Translation)...which is, according to Cisco, a "subset of NAT functionality.

1/2 down
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk648/tk361/technologies_white_paper09186a0080091cb9.shtml

Kinda like DSL modems or cable modems...they aren't modems as much as they are bridges.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Kinda like DSL modems or cable modems...they aren't modems as much as they are bridges.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure those devices still modulate and demodulate signals sent over the lines, so they still deserve to be called modems.
 
jpmkm said:
I'm pretty sure those devices still modulate and demodulate signals sent over the lines, so they still deserve to be called modems.
Click to expand...

But converts the medium....
 
kjm2003 said:
lol, ya warez the firewall there...
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I was actually just trying to say that a traditional modem converts the medium as well, thus making it as much of a bridge as a cable modem or dsl modem.
 
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