[dudeinmud]

Well windows firewall is annoying me recently. When I boot my PC a balloon pops up saying how windows firewall is turned off etc, then the balloon disapears, suggesting firewall has turned itself on. This is a little bit annoying so I'd like answers to the following...

1. Is a firewall important/necessary?

2. What is a good, low RAM usage, alternate firewall for windows?

Thanks.

[serverguy]

Yep, a firewall is necessary. Otherwise your computer is wide open to attacks.

Good alternatives are Commodo or Zone Alarm.

[evilfantasy]

Are you sure it's turned on?

Turn On Windows Firewall Protection (On/Off)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR_bgBIenkQ

[Carbon]

A firewall of SOME sort is necessary. Whether it's through your router or software or a hardware deal is not important. If your router has a firewall, using it means you can forgo software.

I recommend downloading something like ZoneAlarm. Keep it on for a few days then see if it detects anything. Check the log, and make sure the hits aren't just regular trying to phone home programs. If you get maybe 5-10 hits, your router is probably already doing its job and you're OK to uninstall.

[serverguy]

Originally Posted by Carbon

A firewall of SOME sort is necessary. Whether it's through your router or software or a hardware deal is not important. If your router has a firewall, using it means you can forgo software.

I recommend downloading something like ZoneAlarm. Keep it on for a few days then see if it detects anything. Check the log, and make sure the hits aren't just regular trying to phone home programs. If you get maybe 5-10 hits, your router is probably already doing its job and you're OK to uninstall.

Most home / office routers do not have a true firewall. They might block some things, but they will happily let most good and bad traffic through.

I certainly wouldn't want to rely on a £40 or so router to protect my network without any software firewalls on the PCs.

However, if the router is worth more like £150 then it probably is better and has a relatively good firewall. Your PC probably won't need any firewall other than the built in Windows one which should be turned on.

I use a Smoothwall Express Firewall and no software firewalls and looking at the logs for it I have about 40 hackers (generally from china) daily trying to get into it. They immediately get issued an IP block.

[Carbon]

Well it depends - the days of random people accessing vulnerabilities through random port scanning are largely passed, and unless you're running a high-value network (servers. etc) there's not much of a reason to take the time. If someone wants a zombie for their botnet, they'll just get someone without a clue to run a malicious executable. I haven't ever had any problems with a router's firewall, but I only run a small private data server and my laptop on my network so YMMV.

[serverguy]

Originally Posted by Carbon

Well it depends - the days of random people accessing vulnerabilities through random port scanning are largely passed

I take your point, but trust me, there still of people / bots out there port scanning for open ports.

The router we got sent with our ADSL package, a nasty cheap router, does some logging. But, that is all it does. It tells you there was someone port scanning, and that it let them straight in, and no IP block etc.

[bouchusar]

I agree with Carbon, pickup ZoneAlarm. It is a free firewall solution that is more robust than Microsofts.