Computer Firewalls.

Do you know if running two separate firewalls on a computer will slow down internet downloads?

Any comments will be appreciated.

Won't really slow them down but 2 is rather unneccessary, if you have a 1 good firewall you won't need 2, many of them are based on each other anyway.

Stick with Sygate personal firewall and Symantec Corporate virus scanner and you'll be fine.

There would be no need for two firewalls..

dont think it would slow your connection down, they just might conflict with each other, i use zone alarm pro at it works fine for me

Originally posted by cleggy
dont think it would slow your connection down, they just might conflict with each other, i use zone alarm pro at it works fine for me

That's what I use it's a great F/W.

Originally posted by Nerdling
Won't really slow them down but 2 is rather unneccessary, if you have a 1 good firewall you won't need 2, many of them are based on each other anyway.

Stick with Sygate personal firewall and Symantec Corporate virus scanner and you'll be fine.

I've never used Sygate. Is it any good? I use ZA Pro.

[rant]Do NOT use Symantec! First of all, they suck. Second, it embeds itself so deeply into an OS, you'll be lucky if nothing horrible happens. And good luck uninstalling. Even if the uninstall process does finish (and it doesn't 90% of the time), you'll be left with hundreds of useless registry keys that can cause serious problems. Norton is useless bloatware. You have to look at the AV test sites. NAV is nowhere near the top on any of them. It's gotten better, though. Now it detects about 90% of all known viruses. [/rant]

www.virus.gr...

[Edited on 12-28-2003 by Satyr]

Are best in my opinion, you get a REAL hardware firewall...

Peace...
m...

Funny thing someone mentioned firewalls. I put Zone Alarm Pro and Sygate Pro head to head running at the same time about year a go to see which would win my heart. I was looking for a new alternative and I had to see which caught what... It was a simple test, to see which firewall caught the most. Pings, spoofs, blocked ip addresses contacting the host, and suddenly opened applications that make a connection, like the very annoying Real One player

Long story short, Sygate caught everything while Zone Alarm didn't always block some connections that specify to.

If you believe having a hardware firewall, on your router, is enough; it isn't. A software firewall on your pc will let you know which apps are making a new connection, and, for me atleast, thats the most important feature, the sandtrap technique.

Most home routers are not real hardware firewalls. It's a stripped down version that won't protect you as much as Zone Alarm. Although, used in conjunction, it can be helpful.

MrRadicalEd,
Are you sure you set up ZA correctly? I've never opened a single program that connects to the www without ZA asking for permission. If you installed it with ZA's preconfig list, that's why some apps were not filtered. They were preapproved.

[Edited on 12-28-2003 by Satyr]

Ok, I got curious, uninstalled ZA Pro, and installed Sygate Pro. Yep, it sure was much more secure. In fact, it was so secure it wouldn't even allow me to connect to the internet! It was set to "ask", which it never did. I was never prompted for anything, so I manually checked "allow", and manually granted access to all the normal processes that need permission, and still nothing! I also checked it out a bit before I decided it's definitely inferior to ZAP. There is only allow or disallow. It would appear that you can't control incoming and outcoming separately, per application, as you can with ZAP. I guess there's no popup stopper either? Oh well. That's my review.

linux box, 2 ethernet cards, software firewall

you home pc will not care/notice, and you can drop a hub behind the firewall and network all your computers.

it depends, you could try 2 for the heck of it...

im been using outpost 1.0 firewall its a little more then the averge user can understand

I had zonealarm then uninstalled it but when i try reinstalling the "truevectoring sysytem" fails to load

Hardware Routers are good simply because they do not require system resources to be taken up. They aren't the most flexible devices most the time and can include some protocol limitations and stuff like that. But they do make for a decent and cheap security shield that can take a good beating and keep going.

Software firewalls will vary on how good they perform and the types of alert/logging/tracking features. The more advanced it gets the more resources it's gonna take. Having two of them at the same time is only going to cause problems so just find one good one and set it up correctly.

If you're really concerned about network security, then stop using MS. Lean the TCP/IP Protocol Suite. Lean about Networking Hardware. Learn how networking actually works ie: OSI, Routing, Cabling, Packet Structure, Tunneling, Broadcast, Server/Client Handshaking, etc.

Or you could just use your PC for entertainment and not worry about it so much!

Well, for extra security I decided to add and leave two separate firewalls on my computer.

The first firewall does intercept port scan attacks, then I have the ability to trace the ip address. The second firewall did not display a warning of the same port scan attack.

I think that it's good to have two firewalls running because they complement each other for security.

Originally posted by mOjOm
Hardware Routers are good simply because they do not require system resources to be taken up. They aren't the most flexible devices most the time and can include some protocol limitations and stuff like that. But they do make for a decent and cheap security shield that can take a good beating and keep going.

Software firewalls will vary on how good they perform and the types of alert/logging/tracking features. The more advanced it gets the more resources it's gonna take. Having two of them at the same time is only going to cause problems so just find one good one and set it up correctly.

If you're really concerned about network security, then stop using MS. Lean the TCP/IP Protocol Suite. Lean about Networking Hardware. Learn how networking actually works ie: OSI, Routing, Cabling, Packet Structure, Tunneling, Broadcast, Server/Client Handshaking, etc.

Or you could just use your PC for entertainment and not worry about it so much!

Good post! True...most software firewalls will slow your system down plenty. Router is a great way to go.

boo symantec... virus programmers program around it nowadays, i use avg it gets everything to my knowledge

Hardware firewalls are the best way to go. As it was already said, it doesn't take the ressource that software firewall WILL, no mather how fast is your computer. Anyway, you shouldn't plug high-speed access directly in a computer, IMO. It's just more easier to hack this way. Put a hardware firewall, and you put another 'wall' between you and a potential attacker.

If you can afford high speed, you should also be able to afford a hardware firewall. Sure, most built-in firewall offered with common routers are not always totaly stealth, but most offer a good protection anyway.
I personnaly like 3Com's stuff, the series of 3Com Office Firewall are smokin' hot, and only a small fraction of the prices of Cisco stuff.

If you're really parano, couple that with ONE software firewall. But there's really no need to. You're probably not a target anyway. I know that you're Zony or whatever firewall you're using is probably always picking up probes and scans, but that's just normal. As soon you plug your self on high-speed, you will get scanned to. Must scans are done for none-hurtfull purpose anyway. Also why it's good to attribute your WAN IP to another devices instead of giving it directly to your computer.

But you shouldn't even worry or be overly parano, except if you try to hack other computers, download lots of 'possibly unsafe' material or if you computer holds vital information.

Originally posted by ZeddicusZulZorander
Good post! True...most software firewalls will slow your system down plenty. Router is a great way to go.

A router is helpful, but not a true firewall. I know a few people who can hack right through most NAT routers as if they didn't even exist. Of course, for those hackers, ZA is no challenge either. But ZA, used in conjunction with a router firewall, is better. I don't have any problem with ZA slowing down anything.

Originally posted by Satyr

A router is helpful, but not a true firewall. I know a few people who can hack right through most NAT routers as if they didn't even exist. Of course, for those hackers, ZA is no challenge either. But ZA, used in conjunction with a router firewall, is better. I don't have any problem with ZA slowing down anything.

I don't know about "hacking right through" a firewall...if you know what you are doing, you basically set it to disallow all incoming packets and you have nothing to worry about. Really though, what will someone do if they can get a connection through to your windows computer? Nothing, unless you were already stupid enough to have a trojan horse or similar installed, or maybe a denial of service attack which is easily detectable.

2 of those commercial frewalls wont slow it down and it is unnessacary. To protect against your ordinary run-of-the-mill teenage crap-hackers, one is fine. some large military and government servers have up to 18. dont ask me how I know. Routers really aren't much help if someone has a data lance, and the same with blocking incoming packets. If you get their IP (which you must have if ur there), you can mask your own to look like theirs to the firewall. Hope this helps.