PCA Forums

Thanks to whoever turned me on to this.

I wasn't really happy with ZoneAlarm. Often it's intusion warnings are too cryptic. Tiny gives you a LOT of info on the intrusion.

Seems to be far less of a hassle to train.

http://www.tinysoftware.com/home/tiny2? ... o_download

have you tested the firewall yet with tests from http://www.grc.com ?

I tried Tiny and I didn't like it, it was waaay too finicky. Wait until you try something like refreshing Gamespy 3D, it'll ask you for permission for every frickin server! I was turned off ZA as well once I went to WinXP, but I'm using and liking Sygate Personal Firewall... whatever suites your needs I guess...

Tiny isn't bad and it's free for home users. I switched to Nortons since moving to XP.

Speaking of firewalls, I'm not really sure if I need one or not. I'm currently on a dial-up 56k connection. I also have Sygate version 3 running for modem sharing on Win98. According to the documentation, Sygate already has some firewall protection built in, but to what extent I have no idea.

The only program I have running in the background is called BioClean. It checks for trojans and worms that might infect my pc. I have Norton, but it's not active. I manually specify when to scan.

Should I be using some sort of firewall software???

Firewalls have two jobs:
- Stealth/block ports against intruders from the outside
- Monitor programs that are trying to access the internet, an important feature nowadays to stop spyware from calling home.

Tiny Personal Firewall 3.0 got a real huge update from version 2.0 and is more than just a firewall. It has a gazillion of settings and thus might not be for the faint of heart (n00bs). A friend downloaded it this week and played a lil with the settings, next he was unable to save downloaded files or extract ZIP files
Sadly it isn't free for homeuser like the old version 2.0
I'd like to see a new roundup of current personal firewalls just to see how they compare.

I am still running good ole free ZoneAlarm, mainly to stop spyware, my Linux firewall takes care of Intruders from the outside

I'm running the free Tiny v2.0 not 3.0.

ChottoED: I'm behind a Linksys router so I'm already stealthed. The firewall is just because I'm paranoid of worms and spyware.

TUNIS: Actually I found ZoneAlarm MUCH more finicky. I also had problems with ZoneAlarm blocking refresh replies from servers in GameSpy. I've already run Gamespy with Tiny with no problems. I got 3 or 4 popup alerts the first time and that's it - now it does it without bothering me.

What I really like about it is that is tries to give me MUCH more info about the application that's trying to breach the firewall than ZoneAlarm does. Zone just gives you the app's internal name. Most Spyware doesn't identify itself properly so Zonealarm migh just say "60s7t93685 is attempting to access port blah, blah". Tiny actually gives you the PATH to the application file.

by far the best firewall to use is Atgaurd
ive never seen a firewall with that many working features
symantec bought out atgaurd FSCKED it up!
and then called it norton firewall
i have hte last ver of atgaurd that works with 2k but not xp

FP... even though you have NAT for incoming transmits, there's still a matter of outgoing ones you may worry about...

try out Leak Test from GRC

It passes Leak Test

I am with FP on this one. I have a router with a NAT firewall and used to use Norton's Personal Firewall. I could not get Norton's to stop blocking my network communication even if I disabled it for some reason my computers could not connect with each other. Probably was something stupid on my part but anyway I uninstalled Norton's and just relied on the NAT firewall.

Now I have installed Tiny Firewall version 2.0. It has been a no brainer to set up and my network is still working just fine. So far it has been all good.

My other big problem with ZoneAlarm was that (under 2K/XP at least since it runs as a service) if you closed the taskbar icon, part of the firewall WAS STILL RUNNING.

I didn't know this and it was driving me crazy at a LAN party.

When you kill the taskbar icon with Tiny, you shut down the engine and Tiny is OFF, DEAD, KAPUT.

Just seems to be less abtrusive and a smaller resource hog.

One thing though - I did have to disable the settings that restrict file sharing to "permissioned" IP addresses. It was slowing down - DRAMATICALLY - access to my server and files on other computers on the network. It didn't block it, but it would take over a minute to refresh Network Neighborhood or to show another computer's shared drives.

Since I'm behind a hardware NAT router anyway and use strong passwords on all computers on the network, I'm not concerned about file sharing security.

My main concern (as I said above) is blocking worm viruses or spy ware that's trying to "phone home".

I also don't like the sneaky way that some legitamate software "phone's home".

I definately didn't like Norton or McAfee's firewall products. For one thing they aren't very friendly for computer novices. I can't tell you how many clients I get calls from who installed one of them and can't figure out why none of his Internet apps work anymore.

Up until now I've recommend ZoneAlarm to clients but I may start carrying around a copy of the freeware Tiny 2.0 instead.

What about Sygate Personal Firewall or Personal Firewall Pro? Anyone know what the differences are?