Hi All
I have Nortons Personal Firewall 30day Trial. I did start with zonealarm but I could not get the wife's networked pc to see the internet. I know it was probably something stupid but I gave up and downloaded Nortons.

What is good and what is not and how much? :confused:

All the Best
Pete

Peter,

I've been using zonealarm and it's great, it's also free. I think the upgraded zonealarm pro is still on $30. Well worth it IMHO.

Cheers Phill C

PS Checkout http://grc.com to test that your secure.

You can configure normal zonealarm to do all that, in the options section.

I've even managed to open a port for remote access to my PC which is really cool!!! ;)

Cheers Phill C

If you have old PC hardware (e.g. 486) around try running Smoothwall www.smoothwall.org. Very good and easy to setup.

Deano

I am running 2 Pentium 3 600 machines with Windows 2000.

I new I must have been missing something simple with zonealarm. I will give it another go.

Pete

I use both GRC and www.sygatetech.com to check firewall security. GRC is good, but a bit too quick and muppet-freindly for my liking. The Sygate test feels like it is deeply and thoroughly probing the system! (oo, Madam!);)


Cheers,


Nick:)

dsmith,

Your right, you could even go the whole hog and setup a Linux firewall / router on the old 486 and that way you'll be bullet proof. I found a place on the internet that used a 486 with a bootable floppy, so no need for a hard disk.

To much hassle for me, my router (RT311) has a firewall, and I have zonealarm as well. 15 months and I haven't been hacked yet (touch wood)

Cheers Phill C

Pete

Me and Chelsie have had shared ADSL on two machines since May 2001. (Give or take a pain in the ass last 2 months with our provider!) Started with Norton Personal Firewall & Anti Virus. I was so impressed I updated to 2002 for both products. The live update is great IMHO, and gives me peace of mind. (Perhaps the more techy amoung us will tell me this is misplaced?)

Norton Security Check

The above link is from Norton's site (if it don't work
http://www.symantec.com/
It scans your firewall for problems.

Regards

David
Lavender Hill, in case you forgot me shark name ;)

Well
I tried zonealarm again and I could not get it to allow the local network onto the web[img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]
Yes I did enter the IP and subnet mask but it was not playing?
So I have purchased NPF2002 to go with my NAV2001:)

Pete

Pete,

When you say the network do you mean another machine ?

Cheers Phill C

Phil
Yes m8

I ran ZA free for a number of months and was more than happy with it considering the price.

I've since upgraded to a 3Com OfficeConnect hardware firewall which is the mutts (based on the SonicWall kit). Silly not to when it cost me £0. :D

Peter,

Are you running two network cards in the main machine, feeding the other one with the secondary card ?

Cheers Phill C

IMO its Smoothwall all the way, took 15 mins to build the computer hosting it and software installed fully configured :)

ZoneAlarm I think is a great product, if you will be doing ICS then only the Pro version supports this.

Never tried Norton though.

H

I'm sure that Zonealarm offers ICS but if your using a second NIC to provide the LAN, then LAN information must be added and enabled.

Obvious, but think about it a fire wall is designed to stop un-autherised incoming and outgoing packets, so if a LAN based IP that isn't autherised tries to connect to the internet the firewall will just block it.

Cheers Phill C

IIRC ZoneAlarm as a software firewall doesn't do IP forwarding :(

http://www.zonelabs.com/products/za/comparison.html

But heres the comparison between the Pro and the free version.

H

I use Tiny Software's Personal Firewall 2.0 (click Products, then Tiny Personal Firewall 2.0) which is free for home users and is considered pretty good. May be a bit more hassle to set up though...

If you're using Win2k, make sure you've got the latest service pack.

Do any ZoneAlarm users suffer from the same problem as me...

When my Win2k machine boots up, it displays the desktop and then there's a 2minute pause where I can't do *anything*, then after the pause my internet connection becomes available along with everthing else.

Just wondering if I'm alone with this ?

-DV

Never had this on my old win2k machine with ZA Pro.

Now on Xp Pro with Norton PF 2002 as ZoneAlarm doesn't support XP :(

Andy

Wadda you mean??????


http://www.zonealarm.com/products/zap/index.html

http://www.zonealarm.com/services/support_general_faq.htm#10general


Bit of a typo on their site then.....

Cheers,


Nick :)

Avi,

We have got ZA (latest version) and XP on both the server and my machine and it seems to be supporting it fine? The other machine is running 98se and ZA and they all work in harmony over the network. :D

Sorry if we are an exception ;)



[Edited by UFO - 03/01/2002 21:50:03]

Chuck away your USB modem crap and invest in an Alcatel Speedtouch Pro ADSL router. Comes with a firewall built in. I have the one which also includes a wireless basestation !! Excellent kit.

mail me at lee@titanhosts.net for any more info u need.

I've tried ZA with 2 of my XP machines, i set it up, but every time I restart I get prompted for the reg key and it loses all it's settings :(

I do think ZA is better than Norton IMO, if it would work :rolleyes:

Andy

Tinysoftware.com has an excellent free personl firewall. I used to administer checkpoint firewall and found the Tiny one to be very good for setting up rules and informing you on any attacks at home!!! Highly recommended.

Pete,

I've setup ZA to do what you want a few times with no probs. I also run Norton 2001 FW behind my Router which connects to my cable modem on all my machines on my LAN so have a fair bit of experience will that too.

If need any help m8, I could pop round this weekend if you like....

Give us a shout if you like,

Ta,

Matt :)

Matt
All sorted
U have mail

pete

Zonealarm..

Doh!!!!!

Double post!!!!!

[Edited by babber - 1/2/2002 7:47:01 PM]

Firstly what OS are you using?
I use Zonealarm Pro and Blackice ate home and the office.
I have used Norton's personal Firewall 2002 and found it to work just as well as the ZApro, but was a real malarkey to fully secure compared with ZApro. What took me 1 min to configure on Zonealarm took 30 mins to fully secure and configure on Norton:eek::eek: Had never used it before, but if a novice, would not be what I classify as 'fun'
Can't remember Zonealarm normal now, but if you are running ICS from your main machine, then you need to tell Zonealarm of this.
At least on the pro version, click on security, set local zone security to low and Web security to high( you can up the local security as necessary,but start on this), then advanced and on the general tab you have the ICS settings. Select this machine is a ICS gateway and input the IP address of your LAN-based card, not your broadband/dialup based connection. In Local zone contents, make sure that you Local LAN range is ticked to be trusted and NOT your web link.

That will get you going. If anyone can think of something I missed for starters, then feel free to add......


Cheers,


Nick. :)

(ZAPro over Norton PF every time)

Edited to say that Norton could well have taken me sooo long to configure because I was securing my home server with it for testing purposes. Servers run a lot more stuff through a firewall than your average PC......

[Edited by Mr Footlong - 1/2/2002 7:51:21 PM]

I've got a router and an eight port 100 / 10 hub hanging off my cable modem. Connecting PCs to the internet is simple, the router is a DHCP server and assigns an IP per PC. I use laplink to share files, rather than MS network.

The Cable modem issues an IP the the router (30.69.xx.xx) and the router issues IPs (192.168.xx.xx) to the connecting PCs, it can support eight.

It works for me, cheers Phill C



[Edited by babber - 1/2/2002 10:02:46 PM]