Re: sygate personal firewall over cautious

From: Beauregard T. Shagnasty (a.nony.mous_at_example.invalid)
Date: 02/06/05 

Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2005 11:23:53 -0500

Steven L Umbach wrote:

> I did mention I use a firewall device in my original post.

Yes, I see that now. Sorry for missing that. Still, a better
description of the device would have helped. <g>

> It is also my opinion that if you take other precautions, as I
> referred to, that a basic NAT firewall such as the $70 Netgear
> ProSafe model is sufficient for many users who do not want to be
> bothered by a software firewall pop messages. Many if not most
> users simply do not understand how to configure a software firewall
> to stop doing such and if they make the wrong selection they can
> either open a hole in their firewall or block an application they
> want to use.

Nevertheless, if the newbie has a software firewall, they have at
least a 50-50 chance to get it right, eh? Much better than no firewall
at all.

> Once that happens to them they tend to select yes to every popup.
> Many seem to use a software firewall to be a "trojan detector". I
> prefer to leave that to my antivirus program.

I prefer to leave that to my anti-trojan program. Most anti-virus
programs look for .. viruses .. and not most trojans.

> There certainly are situations where a software firewall excel such
> as when you have multiple users who use a computer, for a roaming
> laptop, and you want to restrict their internet access and to
> specific applications and when you want to protect your computer
> from other computers on the local network .

Good advice.

> In my opinion anyone who has a cable/dsl connection should be using
> first a firewall device such as a NAT router and then decide
> whether or not they want or need the extra protection of a software
> firewall balancing their desire of convenience versus additional
> security. With a high speed internet connection, using a software
> firewall alone brings the risk of misconfiguration and software
> firewall being disabled due to malware interference or even a
> conflict with other legitimate installed applications. --- Steve

Trouble is, many people will not spend the extra $$ for the router.
Mostly because they do not know they *should*. A software firewall is
free and easy. And .. routers do not generally check Outbound calling
at all.

And I guess we have beat this topic about as far as it can go now... <g> 

-- 
    -bts
    -This space intentionally left blank.

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