Firewalls

[Jimg]

Today ZoneAlarm said it had a security update I should install.  I had just taken a backup of my system drive with Acronis so I went ahead and installed the zonealarm update.  Afterwards, I took another backup.  The Zonealarm update added over 24 megs to my compressed backup.  This is just ridiculous for a "security update".  ZoneAlarm has been getting bigger and bigger, and taking longer and longer to start up.  Does anyone have an alternative (preferably free) firewall program?  I trust my hardware router/firewall, the main thing I want is to be notified when a program tries to access the internet from my computer, not particularly the other way around.  Suggestions???

[Tedd]

Windows Firewall does this....?

[hutch--]

Jim,

Have a look at www.ghostsecurity.com .  I have been using their freebie for a while now as an extra over NAT and a hardare firewall and it works fine. Its pretty basis but thats how I prefer them.

[Jimg]

Thanks Hutch, I'll take a look.

Tedd-  Windows and Microsoft I trust the least.  They are the primary offenders of accessing the internet without my knowledge.


Anyone else have a suggestion?

[Shantanu Gadgil]

CoreForce
http://force.coresecurity.com/index.php

Extreemely configurable...but, will need to be relearnt! :)

Every new version they are improving...and pretty nicely too!!!

HTH,
Shantanu

[Jimg]

Ok, many hours and acronis save/restores later, I have ghostsecuritys appdefend working like I want.  Very small, fast and good.  A tip for anyone trying it, unless you want to be nagged to death as you try each new app, if you set the default to allow execution, allow start applications, and maybe allow termination, you will only get warnings of an app trying to access the network, pretty much exactly what I wanted.  Thanks Hutch.

[Jimg]

I have been happily using appdefend for two years, but the support forum is no longer in existence, and there haven't been any any updates.  I've been waiting patiently for a bug fix that never happened.

So, I'm looking for a program with the smallest footprint and impact on the system that will stop a new program from accessing the internet until I give my ok, either for this run only, or permanently.

I've tried all the likely suspects (comodo, zonealarm, etc.) and they are all too huge and bog down the system too much.

Any suggestions?

[dedndave]

I hear ya Jim
I was shocked to see how much disk-space the latest adobe acrobat reader takes
As for replacements, have a look at filehippo.com
I use it as a tool to see what others are downloading (it lists things by popularity)
While this is not neccessarily an indicator of what is "best", it gives you a nice place to start

[Mark Jones]

Sounds like you have to roll your own Jim. :bg

(Imagine how small and lightweight one could be if written in assembler...)

[ecube]

sunbelt kero personal firewall(http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/home-home-office/sunbelt-personal-firewall/) is the best free wall out, has been for awhile. It's pretty small, stable and nice to use.Also windows firewall is complete garbage, you can disable it entirely by stopping its service or you can add whatever program you want to its exception list via an API or by simply writing to the registry. It's not even a real firewall, doesn't block any incomming traffic, only outgoing. If you want to write your own firewall you should check out peerguardian 2's source, it was written in C and is a IP/port blocker but its a small source, cleanly written, and it's stable.

[MichaelW]

I think you have that backwards, at least for the Windows XP firewall, it blocks incoming connections but nothing outgoing.

[ecube]

right, but it still sucks :)

[Vortex]

I was shocked to see how much disk-space the latest adobe acrobat reader takes

Foxit is a powerfull pdf reader with small size.

[dedndave]

Funny you should mention that Vortex - lol
I was just looking at FoxIt
I access PDF files fairly often, but never really have a need to create them
Almost all integrated circuit data sheets are PDF, these days
For years, I have used Adobe Reader
Looks like it's time for a change

On a related subject, how many people will jump in my case if
I say, "flash players are about the same as adware - do we really need em?" - lol

[Vortex]

dedndave,

Why mentioning about Foxit is funny?