# Windows firewall vs Others



## Meow9000 (Jul 29, 2009)

I have been looking around the net and people seem to find windows firewall to be effective enough, though myself i find it over complicated and badly thought out, but does it do enough?

I have used Kaspersky, Comodo and currently using Outpost firewall but i notice that with the on access scanners and active kernel protection etc... it tends to slow my system down, not alot but enough to notice program lag and the boot up time taking much longer than normal.

So my question is and i would like a debate of a sorts, is windows firewall effective to stop most threats, or would a proven 3rd party firewall be more efficent?

~meow


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## Steevo (Jul 29, 2009)

The newer firewall in Win 7 and the firewall in Vista couple with a decent free anti-virus and UAC is enough to stop almost anything.


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## Mussels (Jul 29, 2009)

firewalls dont really do much these days. As long as you have a router and dont use DMZ, you're immune to port probing attacks, and therefore only need an anti virus.


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## AsRock (Jul 29, 2009)

Meow9000 said:


> I have been looking around the net and people seem to find windows firewall to be effective enough, though myself i find it over complicated and badly thought out, but does it do enough?
> 
> I have used Kaspersky, Comodo and currently using Outpost firewall but i notice that with the on access scanners and active kernel protection etc... it tends to slow my system down, not alot but enough to notice program lag and the boot up time taking much longer than normal.
> 
> ...



Kinda depends on what you want to to do or want to have to do with a firewall.



Firewalls like Outpost take hell load of time to setup depending on what your wanting to do with it. Like without post you have shit load of control over a application as you could allow it to do one thing but not another.  And theirs all the other controls to it like blocking add or flash referrers cookies and a load of other to boot.

The Vista\Win7 of Outpost sucks as well as the version 4.0 was much much better also better lay out.

Only other one i been thinking of trying out for Vista is Tiny

There is also Trend Micro Internet Security 2009 might be worth checking out too.

Every time i try a new one i end up coming back to Outpost as it offers so much over the others and it's great in getting rid of ads in pages and stuff.

Maybe turn off kernel protection .. Funny that i have just formated win7 and installed Vista i'll give it another check and see what they done to it now.  As i cannot remember any slow downs like your saying..  Maybe a defrag might help  just a thought.

I liked one called TINY Firewall but seems like it went down only reason i picked that over outpost was that outpost you could tweak it easier over time and as you learn how to use it..


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## newtekie1 (Jul 29, 2009)

Mussels said:


> firewalls dont really do much these days. As long as you have a router and dont use DMZ, you're immune to port probing attacks, and therefore only need an anti virus.



/\/\/\/\/\/\/\THIS/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\


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## Disparia (Jul 29, 2009)

Just to be sure...

Meow, are you a student (college network) or living in housing which handles and provides your internet access?


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## Meow9000 (Jul 29, 2009)

I am a student, but i have my own place and private connection, What AuRock said, i find outpost is a pain in the arse to set up, and their 6.7 beta just about runs on Win7 RC7100 few problems here and there but they did issue the program as a beta version. But it has so much to offer over most firewalls.

http://www.matousec.com/projects/proactive-security-challenge/results.php

I've always trusted this site in giving me the best solution, its worth a look i guess, some of you might be supprised how poorly some products are.

~meow


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## Mussels (Jul 29, 2009)

Meow9000 said:


> I am a student, but i have my own place and private connection, What AuRock said, i find outpost is a pain in the arse to set up, and their 6.7 beta just about runs on Win7 RC7100 few problems here and there but they did issue the program as a beta version. But it has so much to offer over most firewalls.
> 
> http://www.matousec.com/projects/proactive-security-challenge/results.php
> 
> ...



if you trust that sites result so much, get kaspersky. it got second best, works fine in vista and 7 - and can be had for pennies on ebay.


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## Stearic (Jul 29, 2009)

At home, I just use the XP built-in firewall, with a router. So far I've not had any problems.

A few years ago, I tried Kerio, ZoneAlarm, Comodo etc, but they all had the problem of being a bit too intrusive/resource-hungry...some app or the other would always have a problem with these :/


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