Firewall settings?

Can anyone point me toward a high-quality, reliable firewall? I'm looking for something that won't lag my system during startup or cause those annoying little hiccups. My current setup on Windows XP SP2 isn't blocking a single thing! Thanks so much!

Norton Personal Firewall - it’s actually pretty solid, and you can set it up quite easily so it doesn't go blocking all your local network traffic.

Norton Personal Firewall 👍

Frank Cooper35 said:ZoneAlarm 👍

I actually gave that one a shot myself, but honestly? Everyone I talked to told me straight up that it’s absolute garbage and just doesn't work.

Kenneth Murphy5 said:I actually gave that thing a shot myself—everyone I talked to told me it was total garbage and just wouldn't work right.

😲
honestly, my Pro version handles everything perfectly fine for me...
never run into any issues with it, really.😬

dustycanyon6 said:Norton Personal Firewall

👍 👍 👍

John Doe said:I gave it a shot, but everyone told me it was total garbage and wouldn't work.

So what kind of issues were you actually having with it?
I've been using it forever and it works flawlessly... clearly, people just don't have a clue. Norton is totally fine. 👍

Frank Cooper35 said:Wait, what kind of issues were you actually running into with it—or while using it?
I've been using it for a seriously long time now and honestly, it does its job perfectly... I feel like people just don't get it. Norton is totally fine 👍

Especially these newer versions...
🙏 🙏 🙏
I've been sticking with it since version 4.6😈

I’ve tried setting up Norton a few times now, and honestly, it’s always been a headache. Either my internet connection just dies completely, or certain apps won't run, or I can't even talk to other machines on my own local network... I know there’s some specific setting I’m supposed to tweak somewhere, but frankly, it's just more work than it's worth. If you've got a setup with multiple computers, McAfee just works without all the drama. You just set one simple rule to let local traffic through and you're good to go. It's much smoother...

dustycanyon6 said:I tried setting up Norton a few times and it was always a headache—either I’d lose my internet connection entirely, some apps wouldn't work, or I couldn't even see other PCs on my local network... I know I probably missed some setting somewhere, but honestly, I don't really care. McAfee just works for me and hasn't given me any grief. If you have a home network set up, you just make a quick rule to let the local traffic through and you're good to go.

Norton, huh?
Man, McAfee totally screwed me over once! Something went haywire after a hard reboot and it just locked everything down, refused to listen to anything... basically, it just completely crapped out on me.
With Norton, though, I've never had an issue, not even with a virus or anything.
But, hey, maybe McAfee is actually great for the average person and what happened to me was just a one-time fluke.

rapidsurfer6 said:McAfee is actually a solid choice for the average user.

👍 👍 👍

Has any actual advocate here ever bothered to learn about protocols, ports, or anything else? Norton is fine if you just want a false sense of security (in which case, the built-in firewall does the job just as well).

If you actually care about security, the FBI is the way to go, though it’s a bit of a headache to configure (I hate how it doesn't recognize that TCP, UDP, and ICMP are blocked if you just ban all protocols from 0-255). But once it's dialed in, it's solid—just be careful with the Windows module, because if you block everything at startup, the system won't even boot.

I'm running Batman 👍

Any of them will do just fine for your average web surfer.
But if you're one of the real deal? You need a hardware firewall.
:-)

That's honestly pretty much the gold standard
I don't really bother with anything else; I just have a built-in firewall on my router, so I don't lose any sleep over hackers

coastalmarlin64 said:Honestly, if you're serious about security, you need a hardware firewall.
:-)

So, which ones are we talking about? 😕

Those guys are the real deal...

So, what's the verdict? I mean, maybe you should just grab McAfee. I have a feeling you'll be able to figure it out way faster that way.

Joe@ said:so which ones are we talking about 😕
?

The real IT pros.

A hardware firewall isn't the same thing as an application firewall, and they certainly don't protect you in the same way. Anyone claiming hardware is the ultimate solution clearly doesn't have a clue what they're talking about.

Cisco, huh? A hardware firewall. 😬