| Sygate Personal Firewall |
| Admin | Sygate Personal Firewall ensures your personal computer is completely protected from malicious hackers and other intruders while preventing unauthorized access from your computer to the internet or a network. http://www.sygate.com/products/shield_ov.htm |
| Alnath | ^bump^ to the top of the threads as people should have these on from day one  John Its not what you have got, it's how you use it  |
| Alnath | Sygate V.5 is now available for free download. This version really is the bogs dollocks. It makes Zonealarm look quite amature (even though it isnt). Version 5 includes many advanced features including DLL authentication for added security and an excellent backtrace feature where you can trace the hops to your PC back to the attacker and then perform a whois and find out who they are. http://soho.sygate.com/products/shield_ov.htm Bye bye. |
| teepee | hiya Alnath/Dave/Admin/anyone i'm no pc wiz and dont no much about them do i need this firewall download and will it just do its job without a lot of technical jargon on how to set up and constantly requiring attention, also does it conflict with any other programs, i'm on xp thanks, teepee. |
| Dave | Hi Teepee, Windows XP has a firewall built into the software but it is not configured by default. You need to do this yourself and here is an article explaining how: http://support.shaw.ca/networks/xpfirewall.htm The firewall isn't brilliant but for an average user with a dial-up connection, it will certainly offer you sufficient protection from most possible attacks. The only thing that it doesn't do is block outbound traffic such as information fed back from Trojans. For this you would have to download an additional firewall to work in conjunction with XP's. Hope this helps, Dave Edited by - Dave on 13 June 2002 01:10:01 AM |
| Newt | Teepee - to simplify the set-up thing for you: Briefly, a classic firewall like the one you have with XP is pretty simple. If you imagine your PC like a yard with a big fence around it, you will have an idea of what a "full firewall" would look like. With this sort of fence though, each section is a gate rather than a fixed fence. These gates are called "ports". The XP firewall has all the gates set so they will open outward and anything inside can leave where ever it wants. And the normal setup with XP is (I think) to initially have all the gates wide open. Setting up / activating the firewall shuts all the gates. For internet traffic to get in, you have to lock a gate open for each sort of traffic you want to allow in. There is no abiliy for the XP firewall to notify you of traffic leaving or of what traffic passes the open gates. It will let you know if something tries to enter via a locked gate though. Other firewalls like Zone Alarm and Sygate (both of which have a free version) are somewhat smarter and can let you know about traffic leaving your system. Black Ice Defender (not free) adds another layer of intelligence. When you unlock a gate, it will also put a gate guard in place so you can specify the sort of traffic you expect to use that gate and it will deal with any other sorts. Ports you will need to open if you want to use the internet from home: (and bear in mind that these are only a few of the 10,000+ ports that are available) 25 - SMTP - Email out 80 - standard 80 www-http stuff. Required for browsers to work 110 - POP3 email in and if you use any of these service(s) 20 - FTP Data 21 - FTP Control 23 - TelNet 1863 - MSN Messenger 4000 - ICQ 5190 - AOL 6667 - IRC 6801 - Net2Phone Newt Vail Edited by - Newt on 13 June 2002 10:28:10 PM |
| norm | hi ya i have down loaded that firewall i also have norton anti and norton firewall my only prob is it keeps asking you weather to block sertain things and i have not got a clue weather i should or should not as they dont say what they are  it isn`t the size of the tiddler that counts |
| Dave | Hi Norm, If you are already using Norton Firewall I wouldn't use another as it could well cause a conflict as each will be competing with each other. Regards, Dave |
| norm | cheers mate i have taking it off it isn`t the size of the tiddler that counts |
| Ziptrev | Dave , I finally managed to get this thing running, but I agree with norm! If my win32 is wanting to communicate to a loada numbers!!!, do I say yes? when I dont know why,where, what for , and certainly not how lol. And/ or do I tell it to remember, so that it can repeatedly contact this loada numbers? Or is it simpler and should I just be looking out for a programme that is likely to be asked spy questions and block just that? Trev Ziptrev Shouldn't happen to a DOG! |
| Alnath | Like Dave said running 2 together is a bad idea. 2 firewalls = no firewall. The XP firewall is 100% rubbish IMHO (my personal opinion only) it doesnt block outbound traffic so it doesnt block Trojans or more likely it doesnt block XP reporting stuff back to Microsoft, can you think of another reason for M$ to leave out one if not the main reason for the use of a firewall? keep in mind that due to this limitation mediaplayer can happily report back and add to the M$ database what radio stations, CDs, MP3s etc. you have been listing to or you have been watching. OK so this is nothing really but M$ is to make money by using the database they are bulding and i dont agree with Bill Gates making money by selling a database built on CDs i have paid good money for. There are a myriad of XP services turned on by default that the average user will not turn off simply because they dont know about them and a good number of them are capable of reporting information to Microsoft. You can see the effectivness of some firewalls here: http://www.pcflank.com/art19.htm The first MD member to voluntarily go to Coventry. Edited by - alnath on 14 June 2002 3:46:05 PM |
| Dave | Hi Trev, All firewalls have to configure themselves to your useage. Initially you will get messages asking something along the lines of: "Win32 is trying to connect to port 123345, do you wish to allow this program to connect to the internet?" If you select the 'remember this answer/option' checkbox and then select 'Yes' the program will not ask you again and will allow that to connect when required. Initially allow everything to connect that is asked about, unless you know what is what, as they will have been doing so anyway before you installed the firewall. You will then find that the program will slow down the number of request. When this happens have a play with the options that you have allowed and see what difference they make, you can always allow them again later if needs be. If once the firewall has settled down you get an alert out of the blue then be a bit more cautious unless it is a program such as Word or MediaPlayer or such that you are using at the time.  Dave |
| teepee | Hiya All thanks for the replys, after your reply Dave i enabled the XP Firewall, but now after reading Alnath's reply of XP being c**p and contributing to Bill Gates database, i'm slightly confused, do i disable the XP, and download Sygate or just stick to the XP,if i stick with XP in advanced settings ICMP [internet control message protocol] should i check any of the option box's or is that just for network & share PC's. Cheers. teepee. |
| Dave | Hi Teepee, If you want my opinion you'd be best off using the Sygate and disabling the XP Firewall. There is also the ZoneAlarm firewall also in the Freebies which is equally as good Dave |
| norm | alnath that was quite intersting about xp fire wall that means it is its self a trojon but i also wonder if all this free stuff off the net has built in trojons (there must be some reoson why it is free) p.s mate what was the weather like in coventry it isn`t the size of the tiddler that counts |