No firewalls that stop incoming and outgoing traffic for OS X?

This boggles my mind that there are none that allow you to open and close ports. The built it one doesn't fit my needs, and I don't want to be at a hotel and not have the ports closed etc when I'm doing other things that require the firewall to be off.

Does anyone know of a firewall (even if it's not free) that would fit these needs?

I really enjoy OS X, but if this can't be had it is a deal breaker for me on the operating system. This weekend I will go to the apple store and see if anyone anyone there knows of a possible solution as well. I'd hate to need to switch to windows for something that seems so little.

 

Does anyone know?

 

This feature is already in OSX. IPFW (the firewall which OSX uses) is very powerful and can be configured to do exactly what you want it to.

Here's the nerd's guide to it (heh ), Google will he happy to help you if you need a simpler version specific for your Apple PC: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/firewalls-ipfw.html

 

Ok why is there no GUI version of this with settings I can just click? What the heck.

 

I don't know, because Apple are obsessed with simplifying/stupidifying everything?

It's pretty easy to work from a terminal though, but there are also available third-party graphical front-ends for it if you'd prefer that route.

 

Where can I get one of those?

Do you happen to know if the dummies for Leopard book will tell me how to do what the complicated website posted above says in stupid mans terms?

I think barnes and nobles had it for only 15 dollars the other day.

 

i would definitely confirm for sure that the built in one cannot suit your needs, just because we weren't able to help you here doesn't mean it is not possible to get it configured correctly for what you are doing.

 

I remember there was a question similar to this posted a few months back. Many people were talking about a program called Little Snitch I believe... check that out, I hear it is really good.

 

From the short description I read, it appears Little Snitch only checks outgoing packets (which normal firewalls also do, as opposed to what it said in the Little Snitch description I read).

I've neer used any of them, but I believe something like this might suit your needs.
http://www.hanynet.com/noobproof/index.html

It basically takes the advanced functionality found "under the hood" in the OSX firewall and makes it easier to understand for normal folks.

 

It looks like their more advanced Wateroof is what I'm looking for. I'll give this a try later today and see if it's easy to work with or not.

 

Waterroof the more advanced version is EXACTLY what I was looking for! I wish they wouldn't have abbreviated so much for the options but I'll play around with it and figure it out.

It also has a button to revert everything back to the standard settings in Leopard or Tiger.

 

Do I want to disable the regular leopard firewall before using this one? It sounds like leopard has 2 built in firewalls. This good one they hide for some reason now and then the new dumbed down one that is accessible in the security options.