Need a filewall, and maybe an anti-virus

[Nance]

ZoneAlarm&Eset

[IdolEyes787]

Great no one's mentioned the ones I will. I've been using it well over a year now.

Comodo Firewall Free (now change to Comodo Internet Security) it comes with the firewall, and AV, if you don't want the AV you don't have to install it....but Comodo firewall is great, if you choose the Firewall to "custom" policy it will ask you on every program that connects to the internet if you want it to or not. It will even show the "ip" it's going to along with application details...and it has program defense, like if your on the internet and say a website downloads a program without you knowing, which could happen, Comodo will pick that up and ask if you even want anything to change on your system. The firewall is the "free" firewall out there. It's the highest rated on CNET and PC Magazine.

For firewalls Agnitum Outpost or Online Armor if you don't know what you are doing Comodo if you do.
.

Comodo's one of the best if not the best firewalls out there but it is a bitch to set up,is quite intrusive and isn't very p2p friendly.
Outpost on the other hand basically does everything for you (even setting utorrent access) but still gives you the option to tweak everything to your heart's content.

As to what saulin said about a router being enough that is a misconception.A router doesn't offer any outbound protection .If you happen to have a nasty little trojan lurking in your computer a router isn't doing anything to stop it from sending all your personal information to someone on the internet .I good software firewall will . The best are basically leakproof.

[SonsOfLiberty]

P2P friendly? Sure it is, make your P2P app trusted...and all is fine. That's why I said to use Custom Policy Mode for firewall that way it sets up the access as you load it, and Clean PC for Defense.

[Frankthetank1]

http://www.sphinx-soft.com/ has the easiest firewall i have ever used. The one i use is for vista though.

[saulin]

For firewalls Agnitum Outpost or Online Armor if you don't know what you are doing Comodo if you do.
.

Comodo's one of the best if not the best firewalls out there but it is a bitch to set up,is quite intrusive and isn't very p2p friendly.
Outpost on the other hand basically does everything for you (even setting utorrent access) but still gives you the option to tweak everything to your heart's content.

As to what saulin said about a router being enough that is a misconception.A router doesn't offer any outbound protection .If you happen to have a nasty little trojan lurking in your computer a router isn't doing anything to stop it from sending all your personal information to someone on the internet .I good software firewall will . The best are basically leakproof.

While that's true if you have a good AV you should not have trojans running on your sytem though. The main concern is stopping attacks from the outside. Once you have a trojan or a key logger already installed you are screwed but in order to get those installed you have to ignore your AV warnings and run the stuff anyways or don't have antivirus at all.

Software firewalls are a bitch and they try to block everything and they are not for newbies for sure. I really dislike software firealls for that reason. Also full security packages that include firewall and parental control software and phishing filters and all that crap just make your system crawl.

Really all you should need is a router, your windows firewall and your AV. Your AV, if it's doing it's job it should catch most trojans and key loggers and all the crap that you can get infected with.

[SonsOfLiberty]

They don't make your system crawl at all..Comodo barely even slows my PC if at all. Next the all-in-one, the Comodo is very easy to disable the "software part of" and it only block what is unknown from a "trusted database from teh site"

[peat moss]

Eset Smart Security 4 is what I use , version 4.0.314.0 . I down load a lot of dodgy software , cracks , key gen's and games . Firewall is easy to use I'v never set it up , right out of the box .


I just tell new software installs to not update and serves me well .


Just checked Processes and its using 2,840K .

[saulin]

They don't make your system crawl at all..Comodo barely even slows my PC if at all. Next the all-in-one, the Comodo is very easy to disable the "software part of" and it only block what is unknown from a "trusted database from teh site"

I used to fix PC issues and 70% of the time people bitched that their systems were sooo slow were because they were infected with malware and the other 30% it simply was because their security software was taking so many resources. I have seen security software take almost half of the resources.

There really is no need for parental control and phishing filtering software and those retarted all in one security suites that Macafee and Norton have. Macafee is by far the worst.

Just go to services in computer management and look at how many services Norton Internet security and Macafee Internet security have running.

Again software firewalls are a pain in the ass. A lot of times they block your whole internet and ISPs get the call. My Internet doesn't work. The first thing I would check when I was working for an ISP is wether there was a firewall installed and most of the time that was the issue when the modem reported that ir was online and the levels were fine. I used to use Zone Alarm before I had a router and man did it ever want to block every single program I ran that needed internet. Once I got my router oh man. I just wondered why on earth anyone wants a software firewall. The windows firewall is the only one I recommend because it only blocks what it needs to and then the router takes care of all incomming attacks. The most important part of security software has always been the Anti-Virus!

I don't even recommend Anti spyware software like Ad-Aware or Superantispyware either because again they slow your system down if they are running in the background and also really good AV software should be catching a lot of spyware as well. Besides it's all common sense. Spyware will ask you for your permission before getting installed. If you just click ok on every popup you get then no security software will save you anyways.

[SonsOfLiberty]

Again, man, I hate to disagree, but Comodo Firewall, no AV is running 5mb and only one service! Compared to my AV using 10mb and 3-5 services (ESET and the big names one here use a hell of alot more, even teh free ones use a shit-ton more including AVG, man now that's a fucken hog ). Hell, I've got different programs running using more than them and Windows is the main problem.

Norton + McAfee = Anti-Christ for your PC.

Like I said, Comodo Internet Security, it only installs what you "want"...ESET has the same "program/malware/install/" system as well.

Spyware is considered some cookies too, and not all spyware ask permission, it's hidden deep inside of installers even from trusted sources.

A good tool is Spwareblaster, instead of running any process's it just use a "kill bit" take a look here: been using since it's first release which was years and years ago.
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

[1000possibleclaws]

Wow thanks for all the replies guys!

im not that familiar with windows firewall but this appears to show how to block outbound.
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=615711

my suggestion is use eset smart security but change the firewall to policy mode rather than automatic. it means everything is blocked unless you make a rule to allow it. making rules for programs like browser/email client is easy whereas it gets a little harder at least in my opionion with utorrent, irc, and ftp clients but if you want to be sure that the program is blocked this is the best way.

if you want a free software firewall try comodo or jetico (v1 is free)

Thanks for the windows firewall guide, it was exactly what I was looking for. Took about 30 seconds to set up the function I was aiming at.

I'll be sure to go over all the advice here and pick a permanent security solution right before my next reinstall, but right now I'm content with just being able to block connections to a couple games.