freeware firewalls

[damien wardell]

which is the best free firewall available?

[Zachary Zachariah]

"damien wardell" <damienwardell@ossulton.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:g38pa1$ora$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk...
> which is the best free firewall available?

A firewall is a computer, sometimes called an appliance, which sits between
two or more networks and performs nothing (or very little) other than
firewall functions.

So your question cannot be answered without considerable information about
what you want the firewall to do.

I am not aware of any free firewalls because a hardware platform is always
required.
You also need to have considerable networking experience to correctly
configure a firewall.

If you are asking which is the best free firewall software to install on
your Windows computer then all such software is crap and you should use the
built in Windows firewall. Anti-virus software is a good idea but forget
about firewall software.

Also find out about backup, if you haven't already, and why it's even more
important than anti-virus.

[Todd H.]

"damien wardell" <damienwardell@ossulton.demon.co.uk> writes:

> which is the best free firewall available?

OpenBSD PF is extremely well revered.

--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

[Zachary Zachariah]

"Todd H." <comphelp@toddh.net> wrote in message
news:841w2vevt5@news.giganews.com...
> "damien wardell" <damienwardell@ossulton.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
>> which is the best free firewall available?
>
> OpenBSD PF is extremely well revered.

Very interesting. I just read the Core Force user guide.

No doubt the core firewall code is of very high quality but I can't help
thinking that pop up messages like "an application is trying to access a
file.. do you want to create a rule?" and "Your computer is trying to
connect to a remote computer..." will be just as useless to the average
Windows user as those produced by the better marketed and not very good
personal firewalls. It's my assumption that the OP was asking about firewall
software for Windows.

>
> --
> Todd H.
> http://www.toddh.net/

[Todd H.]

"Zachary Zachariah" <invalid@invalid.invalid> writes:

> "Todd H." <comphelp@toddh.net> wrote in message
> news:841w2vevt5@news.giganews.com...
>> "damien wardell" <damienwardell@ossulton.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>
>>> which is the best free firewall available?
>>
>> OpenBSD PF is extremely well revered.
>
> It's my assumption that the OP was asking about firewall
> software for Windows.

That's my assumption too.

I'm just being a pain in the ass about a poorly constrained question
that--even if well constrained--is bound to draw the usual litany of
responses about personal firewall software that we usually see, all
the while no one giving a good authoritative recommendation based on
head to head technical testing of products.

:-)

--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

[ASCII]

Todd H. wrote:
>
>I'm just being a pain in the ass about a poorly constrained question
>that--even if well constrained--is bound to draw the usual litany of
>responses about personal firewall software that we usually see, all
>the while no one giving a good authoritative recommendation based on
>head to head technical testing of products.

You wouldn't expect to see other than officious sarcasm in a group
haunted by the ghost of Duane Arnold, regardless of whatever nymshit
handle he now hides behind. Maybe I'll have to peek in the virus
newsgroup to see if he's still giving phony advice over there too.

[dust]

the best free firewall is outpost pro or sygate pro...

[gr]

damien wardell wrote:
> which is the best free firewall available?
>
>
Untangle (www.untangle.com) has as one of its many components a firewall.
Untangle is an open source project which runs on most pc's as a
dedicated unit to function as a web filter, firewall, anti-spam,
intrusion prevention, and more functions. It loads itself and is rather
simple to use. Only drawback I have seen is that it does not run or load
on some hardware.
gr

[Cunnilingus]

On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:49:19 -0400, gr <greif1nospam@rochester.rr.com>
wrote:

>damien wardell wrote:
>> which is the best free firewall available?
>>
>>
>Untangle (www.untangle.com) has as one of its many components a firewall.
>Untangle is an open source project which runs on most pc's as a
>dedicated unit to function as a web filter, firewall, anti-spam,
>intrusion prevention, and more functions. It loads itself and is rather
>simple to use. Only drawback I have seen is that it does not run or load
>on some hardware.
>gr

Yep. It looked good to me too, but wouldn't run on my rig.
Clark Connect did, and it's great!

[spam@gnostheos.org]

On Jun 17, 2:54 pm, comph...@toddh.net (Todd H.) wrote:
> "damien wardell" <damienward...@ossulton.demon.co.uk> writes:
> > which is the best free firewall available?
>
> OpenBSD PF is extremely well revered.
>
> --
> Todd H.http://www.toddh.net/


I agree Packet Filter (PF) on OpenBSD/NetBSD/FreeBSD is the best
choice.
On NetBSD or FreeBSD you must recompile the kernel to enable it.

PF on OpenBSD is so much more than just a firewall, you have many more
capabilities.

The Book of PF: A No-Nonsense Guide to the OpenBSD Firewall by Peter
N.M. Hansteen, Bob Beck
ISBN-13: 9781593271657


----
http://www.1150riverviewdr.com/