Re: alternate to firewall?

From: Duane Arnold (notme_at_notme.com)
Date: 09/27/05 

Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 04:29:54 GMT

"ashecorven" <gharoway@netspace.net.au> wrote in
news:dh8tic$1lth$1@otis.netspace.net.au:

> Thankyou VB, james and casey for your responses.
>
> I should have explained some more. I have being using tiny firewall
> for quite a while but now i have bought a router and i do believe
> (please correct me if i'm wrong) i don't need the "main" use of the
> firewall anymore.

Well, some say yes and some say no. If you're practicing safe hex, have a
router that does logging so you can watch inbound and outbound traffic to
and from the router and basically know what you're doing like looking for
dubious remote connections and using proper tools to help in the
detection process, then no you don't need a PFW/packet filter solution to
supplement the router.

But most home users don't know how, and therefore, some use a PFW/packet
filter solution to supplement the router as most routers for home usage
cannot stop outbound if needed. And I am not talking about the worthless
Application Control in PFW solutions but rather the ability to stop
outbound by at least setting filtering rules to stop outbound by port or
IP.

> But tiny like other firewall products i have used in
> the past (ZA, Sygate) it pops up when a new program starts and asks
> whether it is trustworthy etc. or if the file has changed since the
> last time is was run etc. I find this quite useful and was wondering
> whether there were any programs that did JUST that.

It's worthless as malware can circumvent and defeat it. It can be
defeated at the computer boot process as malware can get to the TCP/IP
connection first and be done before the PFW solution can even start and
get there to do anything. Anything running at the machine level with the
computer's O/S suspect to being attacked and defeated.

>
> However i would like to know which firewall software is currently
> regarded as the best.

None of them as they all do the same thing some with more bells and
whistles than others.

 I would rather a firewall that uses minimum
> system resources. Any trustworthy third-party websites with features,
> effectiveness, etc?

Snake oil

Duane :)

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