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Do you recommend installing a firewall on my new 9100?

post #1 of 20
7/15/04 at 7:27pm
Thread Starter 
Ill be leaving for my university soon, do you still recommend i install a firewall?I bought my 9100 with winxp pro. if so which one(free one please) also will the firewall affect me playing online games? also could someone explain to me how to use the firewall? Thank You i appreciate it!
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post #2 of 20
7/15/04 at 8:18pm
YES! Firewall is essential, especially on a University network. I use Kerio firewall (www.kerio.com). I like it because it pops up an alert every time something tries to go in or out of the compy. You can set it up to allow certain proggys access and others not. Pretty simple. Which is good, cause i'm slow
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post #3 of 20
7/15/04 at 10:02pm

Firewall MUST HAVE!!!

Like MattS said you must have a firewall, in my opinion Zone Alarm has the best free firewall out there and the pro version is much better for $40. Also, must have virus protecion!!!
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post #4 of 20
7/15/04 at 10:06pm
if you will be connected to the internet, or even an internal campus network, you need a firewall. I was living on campus and stupidly didn't have a firewall installed for a short period of time and I got slammed with a major worm so bad I had to become an expert at installing a firewall and configuring it in under 60 seconds before it restarted. my campus even has a firewall surrounding the network, but it still doesn't stop everything. zonealarm is a nice free one, and yes, virus protection is also just as important. I wouldn't even plug the network cable into the computer until a firewall and virus scanner are working
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post #5 of 20
7/15/04 at 11:34pm
i use Norton Internet Security 2003 which includes Firewall and Norton Systemworks with Antivirus 2003 and it works great! been using it for several years now. also i use Ad-Aware(freeware) sometimes to check if i got spywares on my comp.
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post #6 of 20
7/16/04 at 12:15am
Zone Alarm here and Norton Antivirus 2003.
what i hate about firewall is that it slows internet speed considerably.
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post #7 of 20
7/16/04 at 1:02am
I use zone alarm too and avg for viruses .
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post #8 of 20
7/16/04 at 10:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by murtaza
Zone Alarm here and Norton Antivirus 2003.
what i hate about firewall is that it slows internet speed considerably.
....which is why I use a router with its own firewall in addition to Norton Personal Firewall 2004.

The router stops more that 50% of the garbage traffic (ie: broken packets) from hitting the PC - effectively reducing the load that the firewall software has to process.

I use a software firewall (in in particular NPF 2004) for two reasons: 1) when I go mobile with my laptop I can't be guaranteed the network I connect to is protected, and 2) I really like NPF 2004's ad blocking/popup blocking feature. It is working very well for me.
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post #9 of 20
7/16/04 at 11:17am
How good is the built in firewall in windows? At home I use the firewall in the router, but on the road, I enable Windows. Is it adequate?
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post #10 of 20
7/16/04 at 11:22am
Windows firewall is useless. Apparently the updated one in SP2 is much improved...
stu
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post #11 of 20
7/16/04 at 11:35am
Consider this: University may not allow hardware firewall. I dont' know how they do it at your school Pat, but at SU they will not allow you on the network until you run a software cd that they give you first. Forces each user of the network to use McAfee. Personally I think its an extreme measure and I question the legality of it (we have to use the network if we're on campus, its a fee built into tuition).
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post #12 of 20
7/16/04 at 11:40am
Graphical representation of XP's firewall can be found here.
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post #13 of 20
7/16/04 at 11:43am
norton personal firewall here. 2003 i believe. Anyhow its great. Goes as far as when you get an attack it will pop up a world map and zoom into their city and state. Also gives their ip address that did the attack. Ive Gotten so many attacks from all over the world!

I suggest kazza 'in it but u didnt hear that from me.

cheese
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post #14 of 20
7/16/04 at 11:48am
Again I'll post the Rules of the forum for those who haven't read them.

I'll add that pirating security software sounds like a great idea to me . I mean if you were a hacker and wanted to upload a common software package with your worm/trojan/ect wrapped in it, who better to attack than someone without security software?

/illegal discussion.
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post #15 of 20
7/16/04 at 3:05pm
so the built-in firewall for win xp pro is not good enough?
you guys recomment installing a 3rd party one ?
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post #16 of 20
7/16/04 at 3:11pm
Definately third party. Microsoft's built-in firewall is a joke hence that graphic by Axiom. And I'm sure their SP2 firewall update will continue to be a joke. I myself use Black Ice Professional from Internet Security Systems (ISS). Also, yeah having a hardware firewall is good in addition to a software based solution; but please note that most these firewalls with a standard NAT (Network Address Translation) firewall are basically pointless.
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post #17 of 20
7/16/04 at 3:18pm
Yeh I would definitely get a software firewall, as on a university network you'll already be behind their firewall to the outside world. You just need to worry about watching the traffic to/from your computer to make sure nothing that may have found it's way onto the network can get to you. If you are looking at buying a router Element is right about the NAT firewall, look for a router that has a true SPI firewall, pretty much all the new ones do.
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post #18 of 20
7/16/04 at 8:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Element
...but please note that most these firewalls with a standard NAT (Network Address Translation) firewall are basically pointless.
I disagree... to a point. If you're going to get a router because you need 4+ ports then I would get a router with a NAT. Anything that offloads CPU processing is a good thing.

At a college or university, I can easily envision the NAT blocking broken packets 24x7. Letting the NAT trap the junk and not pass it along to the PC means that the PC can run just a little bit more efficiently. Why dump the grunt-work on the PC when the NAT can do it?
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post #19 of 20
7/16/04 at 8:39pm
i think anti virus programs are useless..

i dont use any anti virus programs AT ALL. they are just waste of space and bandwith.

just learn not to open strange files over the net.

i use outpost pro as for a firewall and it monitors my net by showing me whats connected to the WWW and if any other program is making my net slow or accessing it, i just disable it or uninstall it.

simple

ps: outpost pro firewall is small program and it also blocks adds. i been using it over 3 years. TOP firewall. zonealarm is crap, i had it before..too big and the features dont work as good as outpost
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post #20 of 20
7/16/04 at 10:38pm
I like Sygate. Have heard good things about Outpost although I've never used it.

Zone Alarm is a bloated piece of poo. It takes way more resources than it should.
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