Tiny Firewall

[Kubie]

Has anyone here tried "Tiny", a free firewall?
If so, what are your opinions?
Any comparisons to ZA?
Carl

[SARGE]

Carl, any reviews I've read by users say that ZA is more prone to hackers, since it's more widely used. Tiny appears to what it should do, as well as Sygate. Guess it's a matter of preference.

[Trevor]

I have just had ADSL installed and am thinking about using a Firewall.

Decided to check some FREE ones out on my laptop first which IS NOT connected to ADSL socket.

Have tried Tiny and McAfee Firewall 2.1 (both FREE) and both appear OK.

[SARGE]

Trevor, whatever you get, when using dsl, get it NOW, along with a good virus scanner, and AdAware.

[Mech]

I have used both TPC and ZAF. Security wise they both seem to give the same protection unless you are sharing files or running ICS. With ZAF you must lower your security setings in order to share but not With Tiny. ZAF is an install and forget firewall while Tiny is a rules based firewall which requires some knowledge of TCP,UDP,ICMP and requires some time and work to get set up and to make your system secure. You can make Tiny as secure as you want or need but with ZAF it is either enabled or disabled. I'm behind a NAT router and using ZAF at present with no file or print sharing. If I decide to turn on file and print sharing I would switch back to Tiny being it is much more configurable and secure when sharing.

Mech

[Statica]

http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/244026

[SARGE]

Statica, that's good info, but geez, something is better than nothing. I don't have anything on my pc I consider private/personal/password, etc., so I use ZA as perhaps a "false security". Kinda like locking your home and activating alarm system. El Creepo can still get in, but what a surprise when greeted by a Rottweiler who loves cheeseburgers (hold the onions).

[Statica]

Very true, Sarge, something is indeed much better than nothing. I usually only post these in the hope that security minded people will realize that it is not absolute security; but far from it.
A good idea is always keep updating the software .. and <b>to please take note of the CHANGELOG</b>; that will tell you what was wrong with the previous version, was the fix successful; and will also check to see if the previous vulnerability was exploited



Over the past few years, software firewalls have gotten a lot of run. Now with XP's holes looming large it perhaps is time to look into hardware security or a nonWindows security. Esp since you can pretty much make a firewall using a computer for abt $100-200 or so out of cheap parts.