firewall or no firewall?

[bhome83]

had to reformat my hard drive and since im starting from scratch was wondering what people's opinion on firewalls are. i have att broadband cable internet so do i absolutely need a firewall? I know people who say they don't have one and they do fine and others say that it is very important to have one. so what is everyone's suggestion. Is there a good firewall that is simple to use and doesn't cause any pain or frusturation of getting in the way? Thanks for any help.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Yes you need it. Zone Alarm is one of the best, and there's a free version.

[lil Jimmie]

I would recommend a firewall or router with any always on internet connection. If you are running XP at least turn the XP firewall on.

[LordofEchoSide]

get a firewall

[bhome83]

ive heard people say that firewalls are overkill. i will listen to you guys though but was wondering if there is alot of problems that come with firewalls like conflicting with running with programs etc.

[LordofEchoSide]

the only thing is when you use an internet application it asks if you want to let it acces the internet or not. you just gotta check what you want to use to always acces and it wont ask again

[Confused]

In my opinion you need a firewall with a always on connection. Either hardware or software. I use a router. Others will say that you need a software one to block outgoing traffic. Personally I only worry about incoming and a hardware solution dose it fine for me.
Chas

[Force Flow]

A firewall is definately a good idea. Especially for an always-on connection. On my 56k alone, I've gotten hit with trojans at least once a week.

Sygate is another good, free firewall.

[reboot]

ive heard people say that firewalls are overkill Those are the same people that have to keep formatting their system, and reloading windows and all their software because they've been hacked, or gotten a trojan/virus by NOT having one. Or, they are the same people who think a firewall is too much trouble to set up, mostly because they are too lazy to learn how to use even a really simple one like Zonealarm, but then they have to learn how to rebuild their system (software) about once every month, and show up on here with tons of questions, asking for advice that they rarely follow.
Get a firewall!, and learn a little bit about how to use it.

[HAL9000]

You forgot one Jim.... these are the same people that on my cable network end up not only being the victim of a hacker, but the source of a DoS attack that ends up bringing everyone on my cable network to a standstill. Thankfully, the cable company has finally got smart enuf to start banning the IP of these people until they clean their machines and the downtime is in the area of a couple minutes when it does happen.

[doctorgonzo]

Firewalls are a must. I think that outgoing protection is just as important as incoming. I recently discovered a keylogger trojan on my PC as a result of my software firewall, saving me a lot of trouble and potential expense.

[reboot]

Excellent point HAL. I often forget that I'm the only one on my node, so I don't have that trouble like others do.
doctorgonzo has another good reason to run a firewall.

[sdkfz]

I also have att (check out my recent thread http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49460)

I get hits all the time, it is worth the effort and money, it seems like zonealrm is preferred here, but I am using Norton and have had minimal issues functionally (meaning sites do not work) manly pop ups are killed and on abc news (i think it was) the news articles were seen as pop ups and killed.

[catfishjoe_1]

I have zonealarm pro. I had the freebie but the pro has a few more features. I am going to be setting up a homenetwork soon and have already purchased a phoebe four port router that has a firewall integrated into it. I love ZA and had bad luck with norton as I have tried it too. Found a keylogger here too but I caught it without the firewall giving it away. It had not yet tried to connect. I am on dial up and my connection is very slow. Still a good idea. I like knowing what is coming and trying to go from my system!
cat

[kittyfire]

With cable, a firewall is really necessary. You share the bandwidth so there's a risk. I have cable and I run Zone Alarm Pro. I got zone alarm because I had so many dsl customers lock themselves out of the internet with it I wanted to see what was up. I got Pro because the free version will tell you of an attack, it won't tell you who attacked you. The pro version does.

[Edave]

Hi All,
While we are on the subject of firewalls,I have been meaning to ask opinions on the Windows XP firewall.I am fairly new to broadband,and XP for that matter,so I dont know much about either.
I have been running the XP firewall and have not noticed any problems,but I was wondering if this is adequate protection.
Thanks.
Dave

[dldz]

Well back when I used the free zone alarm I discovered this free add on for it that does backtraces etc of who attacked you
It's called Visual Zone (http://visualize.phenominet.com/visualzone/visualzone.htm) And it's free as well, it works off of zone alarms log.
Don

[lil Jimmie]

Edave, The XP firewall is great for incoming packets as it uses SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection) which checks the data packets sent and allows only authorized data to be received, however it lacks the monitoring power that Zone Alarm and other firewalls give the user with unwanted outbound traffic. With Zone Alarm and other firewalls the user will grant or deny a program to access the internet and this comes in handy if a trojan or virus tries to send data out. The firewall will prompt the user to either to allow or deny the program access to the internet and if it is an unknown program then this might give the user a hint that a trojan or virus has infected their system.

[Redo40]

Another vote for getting a firewall. I wouldn't be on broadband without one.

[Edave]

Thanks for the info lil Jimmie,

I think I better Try Zone Alarm.Better to be safe than sorry:)
Thanks again.

[Tuf]

I would rather have a hardware firewall than any software I have seen. But a software one is a million times better than no firewall. Every computer that's on the internet needs to be protected.

[SARGE]

Originally posted by bhome83
ive heard people say that firewalls are overkill.

So are seatbelts, until you need one. ;)

[beckx020]

Last night I got an email with WORM_KLEZ.H in it. I had PC-cillin set for email scanning which will PASS a file if it can't clean it. (WRONG!!!) So... Anyway, I thought I cleaned it ok.

However, my firewall went nuts afterward. I think it's all gone from all the system now.

Moral, if I wouldn't have had my firewall, it probably would have been a lot longer before I knew I didn't kill it. Get a firewall.

[Black Ice]

a good fiirewall and PCcillin work best for me

[Vigilante_26]

I've been on AT&T Broadband for over a year and have never utilized a firewall. I'm starting to rethink that decision in no small part to my studies and the numerous threads like these that are cropping up all over on all types of message boards.

My question to you guys is how will P2P programs, such as KaAaA, be affected with this or any firewall program?

[SARGE]

Zone Alarm on ours asks if you want to allow Internet access the first time you run the program (Kazaa, etc.). You can check "yes" and there's an option to not ask anymore for that particular program. I have 3 on a LAN and we found we couldn't share files between pc's unless ZA disabled - it was doing it's job.

It's kinda like having a spare tire; you hope you never need it but it's nice knowing it's there. ;)

[glc]

It's easy to share files on a LAN with Zone Alarm running - use NetBEUI.

[SARGE]

Originally posted by glc
It's easy to share files on a LAN with Zone Alarm running - use NetBEUI.

glc, don't know nothing about it. Just going by what the boys tell me; they have to disable ZA first. That part of the LAN ain't my department as I have no need to know. I'll pass along your info.

[dldz]

Ok I don't mean to change the subject here but I am really curious why with a Linksys BEFSR41 router I can run the free ZA no problem but I have problems with my Norton internet security?
And it's on 3 machines sharing DSL ???
And GLC I'd like to more of how to use NetBEUI

[SARGE]

Originally posted by glc
It's easy to share files on a LAN with Zone Alarm running - use NetBEUI.

We got that installed. Don, you have same setup as I do - 3 pc's, same router and dsl. Got something in common.

[glc]

NetBEUI is extremely simple - it's a protocol that's been around longer than TCP/IP. No configuration, just install it and it works. It's secure because it's "non-routable" and is not exposed to the Internet. It's also more stable than TCP/IP. I prefer it to TCP/IP for file and print sharing on small (less than 10 machines) lans. Of course, you do need TCP/IP when you use a router to share the Internet connection, but you can remove filesharing from it and run both protocols - TCP/IP for the Internet and NetBEUI for filesharing. Firewalls do not block NetBEUI, so you can lock everything down tight and still be able to fileshare on your lan.

Read what Steve Gibson (grc.com) has to say about it.

[Joeberg]

I'd agree that you need a firewall for safety prurposes, like ststed Zone Alarm would be a great choice thats free or get a router with a firewall built in.

Joeberg