Recommendations for a vista firewall

[insomniak1981]

Can anyone recommend a good firewall for vista. I have just had to reinstall windows on my cousins laptop as it had become almost impossible to use due to bad security (4 months out of date anti-virus, no anti-spyware, no firewall). It's now got good anti-virus (nod32), the usual spyware tools but I'm stuck for a firewall. I use outpost on my xp machine but it isn't compatible with vista.
Can anyone with experience with vista recommend a good easy to use firewall. It doesn't have to be free but ease of use is a must. :thanks:
PS Is the vista firewall any better than the chocolate fireguard that came with xp sp2?

[Inventive Software]

For the record, that chocolate fireguard you make such a pointed reference to isn't all that bad (I used it for 9 months connected to the net and NO attacks :p), but does need configuring to block most things. I imagine in Vista it's more of the same but better, but have no personal experience with Vista.

I'd recommend Zonealarm though, having used it on another computer.

[insomniak1981]

Thanks for the reply. Last time I checked zonealarm didn't work with vista either but it does now. As for the xp firewall, I thought it only blocked traffic one way .

[Zach]

Outbound protection is just off by default. One just has to modify the machine's security policies to enable outbound monitoring. (Do a google search. It's pretty simple to turn on. I'm 100% sure about this on Vista, but I'm pretty sure the XP firewall is the same.)

[insomniak1981]

Thanks for the reply. I have googled and everything I have read says that the xp firewall does not filter outbound traffic (1 example here http://compnetworking.about.com/od/windowsxpnetworking/a/windowsfirewall.htm
It blocks incoming traffic as configured, but it will not block any outgoing traffic. This behavior is by design, as Microsoft and various security experts recommend controlling outgoing traffic through a separate network device such as the broadband router..
It's not really important though as I don't use it but I had read that the firewall had been improved in vista. I was just wondering what was a good firewall option for vista as there doesn't seem to be much choice. Seems now that I have had chance to read a bit more that the vista firewall may not be such a bad option.

[Zach]

So that's just a new "feature" (*chuckle*) in Vista?

I don't have Vista installed at the moment (though I'm going to reinstall it again in a couple of days), but I wonder what kind, if any, of training support it provides. It would be a pain if it just blocked everything by default and one had to modify the security settings for each and every application manually. :)

Well, for your original question, I use KIS (Kaspersky Internet Security (http://www.kaspersky.com/kis6)), and it's pretty decent. (I use a router, and have never desired a software firewall, but I needed new AV software, so I went ahead and paid the extra money to get the full package.)

I've never liked ZoneAlarm, but in fairness, I haven't used it in at least five years, so perhaps it's gotten better, i.e., causes less headaches. :)


P.S. If you decide to splurge for KIS, v.7.0 is about to be released, like this week or next, so be sure to go to their forums and get the latest version and don't bother installing v.6.0. (The activation key you purchase will work for v.7.0, so no worries there.)

[Sirber]

XP firewall is for inbound only, while Vista can block both.
Also, best use a HW firewall (like a router). Uses no CPU.

[insomniak1981]

Thanks for the replies. I use a router myself but my cousin who's laptop it is only has a cable modem so it had to be a software option. Anyway I've gone for zonealarm. Thanks for the input everyone:thanks:

[LANjackal]

Thanks for the replies. I use a router myself but my cousin who's laptop it is only has a cable modem so it had to be a software option. Anyway I've gone for zonealarm. Thanks for the input everyone:thanks:In my experience, you're just going to end up with trouble by going that route. ZA is so paranoid it causes far more problems than it actually solves. If you're running Vista, the built-in firewall is actually sufficiently capable. Just enable 2-way filtering.

[insomniak1981]

Thanks for the reply but in my opinion zonealarm will do the job it needs to do. Remember this is not my laptop that it will be used on.
I used to use zonealarm myself on xp before I switched to outpost and found it pretty good. The free version as I remember it took very little configuration apart from a few exceptions and this is what is being used on the laptop. This laptop is only going to be used for web browsing and very little else, so I think that it is a reasonable choice for the situation. The main reason for my question was that I knew very little about the built in vista firewall and I could find very few vista compatible firewalls, and as I don't use vista myself I thought that maybe someone that does use vista would be able to give some suggestions.
Anyway ZA is up and running and from what I have been told is doing it's job fine (no complaints anyway).

[aydc]

Look at this link for Vista compatible firewalls:

http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_RTM_Software_Compatibility_List#Firewalls_.2F_IDS.27s

I've tried most of them and the best for me is AVG Firewall.