Firewall

[Lisandro]

"ALL firewalls failed in checking and stopping outgoing hidden connections and DNS attacks." all is not something I would believe.
Nor would I believe "ALL firewalls have no defense versus outgoing malicious connections." without knowing which firewalls were tested and what was tested.

ALL firewalls have no defense versus outgoing malicious connections.

Like David said, it's very hard to believe...

True Tech, but if he has nothign else installed on his system as we all can see, he doesn't have... then it's much better if he leaves Windows XP firewall enabled... anyway, much better to have it enabled than have no other firewall installed and XP firewall disabled... this way, he will be at least much better protected than without it...

Yeah... I could read Lukas' post in this way too. Sorry, you're right, better XP internal than nothing.

[kamulko]

ok, friends: you have the right to keep closed your eyes... but never I doubt if DavidR or Technical say something. Why you have this suspicious behavior?  There are millions of newspapers stands in the world and everybody can buy PC Magazine and Computer Bild.

ADDED: lukas said " It will do its job pretty well"... I don't think that XP Firewall is the better. I said this: if there's no protective firewall (outbound, etc) why to spend so many money for nothing?

[DavidR]

Thanks for the offer but it is OK, I will see if I can find it on the US PC Magazine site, I'm sure they didn't just do it for one region.

The only reasion I mentioned is ALL is so total, there is no way they tested ALL the firewalls.

[Hopismum]

David I was interested in reading it myself so did abit of searching at PcMagazine...

I couldnt find a complete test that is current.. only for 2003...

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1370955,00.asp

 

and this link has links to separate tests for each firewall

http://www.pcmag.com/search_results/0%2C2426%2C%2C00.asp?qry=firewall+test&filterapp=&site=3

[kamulko]

I tried to scan but the size is too large and the upload is not accepted. If i resize the pages, the images are almost invisibles. Sorry.

PC Magazine is of April 2005 ; Computer Build is of this week (the magazine is in the stands every 14 days)

LOW RESOLUTION: sorry, is not the better... five minutesand you can get the second page of CB

[kamulko]

2 page of CB

[kamulko]

Scarso=Insufficient
Pessimo=Very Baaaaaad!
Gratuito=Free
Buono=Good
Molto Buono=Very Good!

[kamulko]

PC Magazine test was on 20 (twenty) firewalls. Every test= 1 page! Impossible to scan all these pages!!! 

[Lisandro]

PC Magazine test was on 20 (twenty) firewalls. Every test= 1 page! Impossible to scan all these pages!!! 

Don't worry... if it says that no firewall is good it's ok... It will be very bad if it says: only this firewall works...
I doubt that some tests are paied by the winners 
You don't have to pay for a firewall: ZoneAlarm does its job (everyone recognizes the knowleadge of ZoneLabs), Sygate (if you don't have a local proxy, in my opinion), Outpost and Kerio. All have free versions.

[kamulko]

Yeah, Tech, this is the point. I trust in the tests because the result (in short words) is  BAD for ALL the softwares:

1 Firewalls blocks inbound connection - good
2 Firewalls are vulnerable to malware attacks - not good
3 Firewalls are dismantled or damaged (totally or almost) by massive attacks :'(
4 ALL the Firewalls don't block the most of the outbound attacks 

All known firewalls tested: Outpost, Kerio, McAfee, Norton, ZoneLab, Sygate, Kaspersky, Microsoft Beta, etcetera.

The final comment (by the journalist) is (as I said in other part of this Forum):"These products are good products... but they have no right to call itself firewall"

[TedNelly]

Yes Kamulko! these are good products not perfect just good that's what keeps us looking for better ones

[cvsa]

these products are good enough for personal use !
they keep your ports stealth and warn you if an application tries to go on the internet without your permisssion..

Maybe in case of a targetted professionnal hacker attack  it's not enough but..... most attacks come from sniffing by script kiddies.

we just have to be "aware" (like JC van Damme ) If you're too paranoid, just unplug your internet wire.

[Umath]

There are many firewall leak test sites and Outpost Pro has passed all these.
http://www.google.com/search?q=firewall%20leak%20test

Thanx for the tip, David R.

I tested some of leak-test apps and found that most of them are harmless as long as IE is blocked (I use an IE alternative for a few sites such as Windows Update, which is a cheap trick which even a non-specialist like me can think of).  However, one of the leak-test apps was successful in connecting to the net through svhost.  Unfortunately, I need svhost for my router.  Is there any way to solve this issue or should I have to live with it?

I asked about sandbox apps in another thread but maybe I should have asked in this thread from the start.

[DavidR]

What was the URL of the svchost leak test?
What firewall were/are you using?

I tend to keep with firefox as my primary browser where ever possible because it doesn't use activeX, BHOs and isn't an integral part of the OS, this makes it (IMHO) less vulnerable than IE.

If you lessen the risk of attack (the program has to get in first), you lessen the risk of this type of outbound connection being initiated. Another thing I do is to restrict the rights of your browser so you are not browsing whilst logged on as a user with administrator rights 'MS Drop My Rights' can do this just for apps that connect to the internet so you can remain logged on with administrator rights.

[Jarmo P]

I just want to say to all.
Having outpund protection is nice.
But is not really needed for normal users.
All the years  I have used Sygate, sure it has allowed me to control and monitor the traffic going in and out. Kind of grown and need to know, hehe.

But I never had reason to think I was anymore better safe than with only XP SP2 fw.

Must be my safe habits then?

So why I say those are for only peoples paranoia minds mostly is not a generalition, just my own experience.
So I have to agree with Lukas.