Best Free Firewall Software for Vista

Well I need a Free Firewall software for Vista. I've looked at Jetico, no idea if its any good. I used to have Comodo but since it isn't Vista Compatible yet I can't use that (and god knows when they will make it compatible)

Currently I have:
Avast Antivirus Home Edition
Ad-Aware 2007
Spybot - Search & Destroy

Think thats enough? XD

 

I thought Vista comes with a firewall ?

Though from a security perspective, firewall should be on a seperate machine as otherwise, it is pontential controllable by any malware that is running on it.

So most firewall that is for XP/Vista are in general the same, they are good enough to block attacks from ouside(though those nasty bugs of the file sharing protocol has long been fixed) and useless for running malware.

 

Vista's firewall is next to useless unless painstakingly configured. And then you've still got the issue of trusting a firewall that's *part of the operating system* to keep fellow programs built into the OS from phoning home. Stay away from it. For free firewalls, look into Zonealarm. The newest version is Vista compatible, and it'll get the job done.

 

useless in what sense ? part of the OS and running on the same machine IMO is the same thing. If you worry about OS phone home, don't use the OS. Do you allow Windows update ? that is still phoning home.

 

ZoneAlarm free firewall is the best of the best.

 

Do you find Avast slows up your system at all? I uninstalled it just yesterday from my Vista system as I had a feeling it might be slowing things down. I switched to NOD32 mainly due to recommendations from this site and have found reaction times (program and document loads) have sped up considerably. Of course it's not free but I figure it's worth paying a small amount if it works well.

I used to use Comodo on XP and like you I'm looking for a good alternative for my Vista HP (x64) setup.

 

Once the Comodo firewall for Vista comes out, it will be the best.
At the moment it is the best, free or paid, firewall available.

 

Just installed ZoneAlarm on Vista and it seems to be running okay. The firewall throws a compatibility problem in the Windows error reporting app, but that is usual.

BTW, the versions of ZoneAlarm for Vista & XP are different (so be sure to get the correct one if downloading from somewhere other than the CheckPoint site).

 

The Windows Firewall under Vista or XP is adequate for most users. Under XP it will not block outgoing connections; only incoming. Under Vista you must manually configure each program for outgoing connections. in the Windows Firewall. Kind of a PITA.

I liked and used the ZoneAlarm Security Suite under XP, myself. However, the version released for Vista is missing several key components present in the XP version.

At this time I have disabled the Vista Windows Firewall and Windows Defender and am running avast! (antivirus), PC Tools Firewall Plus (firewall), and PC Tools Spyware Doctor (antispyware). All free. Links to them all on my website, too.

 

There are ways to ensure every Windows program doesn't have a free ride jettisoning information out of your computer. Using a firewall that isn't built into the operating system is one of them. Vista out of the box lets anything out of your box. Zonealarm - or any other decent 3rd party firewall - does not.

And nope, I don't use Windows Update on XP. Never needed it. The only way I'll use it on Vista - if V ever becomes my primary OS again - is to download language packs, themes, and a fix for Vista's inability to scale down the DPI.

 

It is OK as long as it is set to inform and let you make the choices.

 

Zonealarm is a CPU hog...my CPU usage went from 8% to 50%

 

Yeah, personally if I were on Vista, I would use the AVG av + firewall suite.

 

Windows Firewall

To get started, just click on the Start Button and key in wf.msc and hit Enter. This will bring up the comprehensive Windows Firewall with Advanced Security management interface. Here you will be able to configure rules for incoming as well as outgoing connections.

got that from another site. I dont have vista yet but its coming on my new laptop, apparently it allows you to enable both inbound and outbound options on the vista built in firewall. can anyone try this out ?

 

Where are you going to download these things from ?

 

Windows Update.

 

How would you get informed ? Where is the information coming from ?

 

So you would still make contact to Microsoft, how can you ensure no information get transferred ?

 

My point was that the only time I would use WU would be if and when it offered all three of those amenities - lang packs, which are already available, new themes, which aren't, and (this is the big one) DPI support, which isn't even acknowledged by Microsoft at this time - and I'd already made the decision to switch to Vista as my main operating system.

If all four of those stars came to align, sure I'd take the phone home hit and use Update

 

As per my previous post, yes, Windows Firewall can be configured for outgoing connections in Vista only; however, you have to tell it everything, it will not detect nor give you a list of programs to configure.

 

Y'know, some information has to be transferred in order for Windows Update to know what is installed and therefore eligible for update. I have to accept that Microsoft is probably not extracting my address books and quicken data for nefarious purposes.

 

So you would rather leave XP in a known non-secure state ?

My point is that from a security perspective, you are as safe as the program you are running(have to assume that malware can take over your machine, that is how key logger works). And even as simple as a DNS lookup can transfer information through the net.

 

That is my point. If I use Microsoft stuff, I can only assume they are not doing it or at least not in a harmful way(which would get caught by the public pretty soon). So if that is the case, I fail to see why I cannot trust its firewall.

 

For me it is not an issue of trust per se, but rather an issue of convenience and feature set. Windows Firewall comes up short on both counts.

 

My XP secure as I've got it set up. If you're patched to SP2, use firewalls and avs, and surf smart, there are very few "critical" updates you need from Microsoft, despite their indications otherwise.

As John noted, it's not so much trust as configurability and ease. I've got a better handle of what goes in and what goes out when I use non-Windows firewalls. If the VF or the XPF showed which programs tried to send out connections on a case-by-case basis by default, I'd consider using it. However, it doesn't - not in XP, and not in Vista. So I don't use it.

 

It's sort of like the difference between using Internet Explorer and Firefox to surf the internet. Sure, either will get you online. But I've got a lot better handle on my surfing, as well as on what's coming in and what's going out of my computer, when I use Firefox than when I use IE.

 

So to get back to the thread topic, firewalls for vista are-

Zone Alarm- Some compatibility problems
Comodo- Not a version for Vista yet
AVG- Costs money (problem for some people)
Microsoft- Question of trust

So is there anything else? I would like to know myself.

 

So far one of the best firewalls (out of those that are free and not free) has been Jetico 1.0.1.61. Many people don't use it as it is quite complex, yet this is what makes this firewall the best - it is highly configurable, giving you a total control over the system. Plus it is very light - uses almost no resources at all. It is also free.

The downside is that Jetico 1 is only XP. But there is a second version - Jetico 2, which runs under Vista but is not free unfortunately.

Jetico 2 is also very light, very configurable but a littel bit more user-friendly. It also a little bit new now, bugs here and there (whereas Jetico 1 has been cleaned virtually of all bugs), but it is getting there.

As for the free one, Comodo is good, but no Vista and is not light, so even when they make one for Vista it's likely going to be the same resource hog.

 

You left off the one from my post: PCTools Firewall Plus.

Also, it is not quite accurate to say that ZoneAlarm has some compatibility issues. What is accurate to say is that ZoneAlarm for Vista is missing features when compared to ZoneAlarm for XP.

 

Use Comodo in XP and PCTools Firewall Plus in Vista.