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        New Message Board Archives >> 2004 Posts >> Puter question
        
(Message started by: Jimi on Jul 1^st, 2004, 10:13am)

Title: Puter question
Post by Jimi on Jul 1^st, 2004, 10:13am

Hi gang. I just got back from vacation and noticed that my 90 day free Mcafee 90 day Firewall Plus that came with my new puter had expired. My question to you savy computer guru's is this. I know that I need firewall protection. Should I purchase one or is there a good one that I can download from the computer?
Cheapskate Jimi

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by ExplodingEyeBall on Jul 1^st, 2004, 10:31am

If you want something worth while, you will probably have to dig out the check book.

Here's a couple of links for free firewalls.

I haven't personally tested either of them so you are at your own risk here.

A big problem with freeware and shareware of this type is that they do exactly what they claim to be protecting you from but I think the two companies in this case are legit.

http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp

http://www.tucows.com/preview/213160.html

Here is a link for the product I would recommend.

http://www.symantec.com/sabu/nis/npf/

They also have a combination Anti-virus/Firewall product that works very well.

I just purchased the Anti-Virus/Firewall combo for a system I was working on and it costed around $80.00. There were rebates on it that made the final price about $20.00.

Check places like Best Buy and Circuit City for this stuff and it's likely that you will find a real good rebate on this product or a similar one.

BTW: If you are using Windows XP, there is a firewall included with it. It's not the best by far but it does work.

Pat

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by jhammer on Jul 1^st, 2004, 10:51am

What OS are you using? If it's anything '*nix' I have a couple good firewall scripts.

~Jake

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by fubar on Jul 1^st, 2004, 10:54am

Those firewalls are all decent, and you really shouldn't have to pay for a personal firewall.

Unfortunately you really are going to have to pay to get any decent protection from virii. You could always switch to Fedora (or any linux) and be a lot safer, but a lot of us don't have that choice. You probably want to stick with one of the top vendors of virus protection (McAfee, Symantec (Norton), Trend, etc).

Also, if Mcafee is already installed, I can't think of any good reason not to just renew it. Sometimes you run into all kinds of problems trying to install some firewall and anti-virus products over another one, even when you do it properly. So, if you decided to go with Norton, for example, you would uninstall McAfee and install Norton. I've seen a lot of problems doing that before.

-Fu

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by alleyoop49 on Jul 1^st, 2004, 10:54am

Jimi,

Pat gave you good advice. If you want a freebie firewall, I would go with the ZoneAlarm.

If you don't have a good anti-virus, then like he said, the Symantec product(Norton Internet Security) is one of the best on the market now. If you use this third party vendor https://www.supersupplier.com/ , you can get NIS 2003 for $10.98 or NIS 2004 for $28.49 - NO REBATES!

Good luck on removing McAffee from your system.

ps
Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with.

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by Jimi on Jul 1^st, 2004, 12:35pm

You guys are great. Well I did renew my McAfee Virus Protection when the trial ran out last month so I sure don't want to delete McAfee. I guess I will just do what Fubar recommends and renew the McAfee Firewall Plus for $34.95.
I DO have Windows XP Home Addition. I was not aware that it has its own firewall protection. Where do i find it, or is it just built in?

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by ExplodingEyeBall on Jul 1^st, 2004, 12:50pm

Click Start and then click on Control Panel. Next, double click the icon for Network Connections.

Find the connection that is used for your internet connection. It is probably the only one there.

Right click on it and select Properties.

Click on the Advanced tab.

Select the little box next to where it says "Protect my computer Blah Blah Blah".

After doing this you can customize your firewall settings from the same place.

Pat

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by jhammer on Jul 1^st, 2004, 12:52pm

First click your start button -> settings -> control panel -> administrative tools -> services, then scroll down through the list (it's alphabetical) and look for 'Internet Connection Firewall', highlight it, then click the 'Start' link in the left-hand pane of your window. The may also be a service called 'IPV6 Firewall' you should start that one too if it's available. You'll have to do this every time you start your computer after it's shutdown...when service pack 2 is available (sometime in September supposedly) it should start those services automatically.

~Jake

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by jhammer on Jul 1^st, 2004, 12:58pm

Lol...Guess Pat and I just proved that theres several ways to do the everything ;;D

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by ExplodingEyeBall on Jul 1^st, 2004, 1:09pm

There are many ways to skin a cat.

I'm trying all of them. (Just kidding.)

I'm sure that this will be another reason for some people to tell everybody to switch to a different OS.

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by Root on Jul 1^st, 2004, 1:25pm

Well everything I was going to say was covered except the usuall disclaimer.

"This advice is given free in the hopes it will prove usefull. It comes as-is without any warranty whatsoever."

[smiley=smokin.gif]

PS. MS XP Home Edition? You're Doooooooomed.

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by ExplodingEyeBall on Jul 1^st, 2004, 1:27pm

XP Home edition - Win ME --- The two biggest pieces of crap ever purged from the bowels of Microsoft.

XP Pro Win 2000 Pro --- I like em.

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by jhammer on Jul 1^st, 2004, 1:47pm

No offense man, but just about anything purged from the bowels of Microsoft is crap! Although XP Pro is a step in the right direction.

Now Fedora, that's a real operating system ;)

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by fubar on Jul 1^st, 2004, 1:55pm

Win XP Pro with SP2 is really quite good. Anything (including Fedora) can be configured poorly. The problem with Windows (all versions) is it comes out of the box that way. Fedora rocks, but WinXP it virtually required in my line of work.

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by jhammer on Jul 1^st, 2004, 1:57pm

Is SP2 out allready? I thought it was due in September.

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by ExplodingEyeBall on Jul 1^st, 2004, 2:02pm

XP SP2 is out in beta. I'm testing it now.

For once, MS actually put some thought into a service pack. It actually has some decent stuff in it.

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by Ueli on Jul 1^st, 2004, 2:26pm

For virus protection I use "AntiVir Personal Edition" available for free from
http://www.free-av.com/.

Besides the virus scanner it has a guard that catches viruses in e-mail and such.

According to a computer magazine I read, AntiVir is often faster with new definition files than the "big ones".

PFNADs
Ueli [smiley=smokin.gif]

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by Opus on Jul 1^st, 2004, 3:03pm

Be careful with Zone alarm, it doesn't play well with Norton, In my mothers XP pro, the new zone alarm broke Norton antivirus and also made her CD burner disappear from M$ windows. It took a little bit to get everything working again. Sygate is probably your best bet.

As for Linux, Fedora hates me so I would recommend SuSE. Xandros looks nice too but I haven't tried it.

Your mileage may vary.

Opus/Paul

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by Melissa on Jul 1^st, 2004, 4:00pm

I have MS XP-Home Addition with ZoneAlarm version 3.1.291 (I refuse to upgrade), and it works quite well. I also have the McAfee VirusScan Online, which I will renew once my free trial ends (I also had this with my old puter). I also have the McAfee Personal Firewall Plus and Privacy Service, but they are not downloaded.

I am hoping to download Fedora when I get my cable modem hooked up, as I cannot stay connected for more than 8hrs at a time with my dial-up. ::)

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by firebrix on Jul 1^st, 2004, 5:24pm

Please take good care to read the Zone labs forums before you consider installing the New Zone Alarm Version 5. All previous versions were great and easy to use but Version 5 installed well on some computers using XP and totally wrecked others.
My desktop's hard drive is now history and its only 2 years old.
I updated from the previous (good) version 4.5 and it all turned to custard.
Norton was disabled, and I could open only 3 webpages at a time and like Opus's mother, I lost my CD .
I went to their forums and learned that more than 5 million computers had been affected.
It took me four days to get rid of it completely because it is not simply a matter of Control Panel/Uninstall, and the gurus kept finding it had done other things....... ::) and even when I followed their newest instructions, the computer was S L O W.
Soon after, it refused to boot and wouldn't even boot in safe mode. I gave up and took it to the shop where it has had them baffled for over a week. I MIGHT get it back this week, but I'm not holding my breath.
I am (to put it mildly) frustrated and inconvenienced and cannot help but blame this software for the death of my 2yr old, barely used hard drive. (Its challenging to be a freelancer with no Word and my laptop has only Notepad - I had to COUNT 15,548 words yesterday!!!!!) (No. It probably WASN'T accurate)

Naturally, I advise against Zone Alarm 5 altho' I loved the previous versions and am aware that it installs OK on some computers. I am running PC Cillin 2002 on the laptop and this, with a built in firewall, seems ok and updates as regularly as Norton. They have great support too. I have also used Kerio 4 firewall and liked that too.

Whatever you do tho' Jimi, get a firewall installed fast! There are many threats out there at the mo! Just don't do what I did!
firebrix

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by Jimi on Jul 1^st, 2004, 7:22pm

Thanks for all the info. I guess I will just renew my Mcafee Firewall Plus

Title: Re: Puter question
Post by Opus on Jul 1^st, 2004, 7:30pm

on 07/01/04 at 16:00:15, Melissa wrote:

That's fine until some script kiddie finds a vulnerability like was done with witty worm (http://www.caida.org/analysis/security/witty/). A patch was out the same day as the worm and the only fix was to upgrade, which in the case of zone alarm may trash your system. It is better IMHO to find a firewall you can trust and that you can update.

on 07/01/04 at 16:00:15, Melissa wrote:

I am hoping to download Fedora when I get my cable modem hooked up, as I cannot stay connected for more than 8hrs at a time with my dial-up. ::)

In the case of broadband it is also a good idea to get a NAT, AKA broadband router to further protect your computer.

Firebrix,
What's the problem with the repair shop, tell them to just boot it with Knoppix, copy your data to a usb or network drive, erase the whole drive to zero's and then reinstall XP. If they can't do that then you need anouther shop.

As for needing a word processor, I am assuming you aren't using word because the notebook is slow so get Abiword (http://www.abisource.com/) , or install word97, I have to admit it works pretty good on Win95.

Opus/Paul