Actually i used to use zone alarm pro the latest version but the problem is that it racks up extreme amounts of memory over time ie the longer it runs the more the mem it will consume. So i'm trying to find a better one .. any suggestions??
The current version of Sygate Personal Firewall v5.6.2808 has a severe problem running on many systems regardless of the OS version, and this has been ongoing since November 2004 when it was released, it is yet to be updated with a fix. v5.6.2808 won't run on either my Win98 or WinXP Pro system and promptly gives a pop-up crash dialog. The problem is well documented on the Sygate Forums. The last known "stable" version I know of was v5.5.2710, well at least it can start without immediately crashing, although it has the ability to start acting up out of nowhere such as some websites won't load in any browser, some programs can't be updated using their update component (Spybot SD, QuickTime, etc).
If you use Windows XP Service Pack 2 the Windows Firewall passed all of the Gibson Research ShieldsUp tests as being TruStealth. It may not do enough for you, however it isn't buggy like many third-party firewalls. It automatically protects your system without any confusing configuration, and without constant firewall alerts, e.g.; it protects
your system without ever bothering you. The drawbacks are no outbound blocking of programs therefore systems infected with malware will be vulnerable, it also has a rather crappy firewall log. If you scan for viruses, and malware everyday whilst using it, your system "should" be alright.
There's more firewall talk in
Thanks for that update on sygate. I'm using the service pack 1a and cannot use the service pack 2 because i'm trying to do a research on network security and what would actually secure the entire network and not just a single computer. If i install the service pack 2 it will not let me use any network monitoring tools coz its a kernel level patch. Therefore i have to use a firewall. Any suggestions??
Agnitum Outpost ? it uses much less resources as compared to zonealarm...
Correct. I noticed on 9x/ME machines it would take up 15-20% less than ZoneAlarm Pro.
Unfortunaly there are no good firewalls for Windows.
They're like toys, blinking buttons and very trivial, to the extent of having a "ON" and "OFF button.
You cant really do any defined custom SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection) filtering.
Most Windows firewalls comes with integrated IDS (Intrusion Detection System) which makes people who use it paranoid because as soon as they see a ping sweep or a random port probe they think someone is trying to hack into their precious computer.
If you want a real firewall, you will have to run a hardware firewall, Linux or BSD.
If you want a real firewall, you will have to run a hardware firewall, Linux or BSD.
A hardware firewall should also be supplemented by a software-based firewall.
As of the 12th of June:
A bug in a Zone Labs update caused firewall crashes late Thursday for about 50,000 users of the popular ZoneAlarm Pro and ZoneAlarm Security Suite products. The crashes happened after people downloaded the daily Program Advisor update, said Gregor Freund, general manager of Zone Labs, which is part of Check Point Software. Thursday's update contained a bug that had slipped by Zone Labs' quality checks.
The Program Advisor update is a list of trusted programs that tells the firewall which applications should be allowed to connect to the Internet without user interaction. A new version of the list is produced daily. By default, ZoneAlarm products check on start-up for a new version and download and install it, Freund said.
This didn't affect the free version of ZoneAlarm. I guess all firewalls have problems, it's just according to how bad they are.