Vista Firewall

Now; I am waiting on Vista for a year or so, but my friend just bought a KILLER Dell Laptop and as usual brought it to me for tweaking...

I am a HUGE.... HUGE ... proponent of free software and run only freebees on all of my PC's even the forensics machine...

OK, My problem...

I put AVG on his laptop just fine and it is working well...

I can not currently find a free firewall that is Vista Compatible...

Any Help????

Thanks

Semper

From my experience, the embedded Vista firewall is pretty secure. Almost too secure if you ask me. I think you should be okay just running the Vista firewall, until a freeware vista compatible firewall pops up.

That is what I have him running now..

Thanks for the reassurance.. I am of course only accustomed to the XP firewall and as useless as that is, I was afraid for him...

So, I'll just keep the Vista Firewall up and running until something comes out...

I am running Filseclab and I understand they are going to go Vista in the near future...

As is Zonealarm

Semper

I am running Vista and I am using Zonealarm Security Suite, which I am officially beta testing. You can download it free if you wish to use it. It is almost ready to go retail and it costs money when it goes retail. So if you want I would suggest using the beta version of Zonealarm Security Suite. It isn't the first beta I have updated it many times and it runs nice and stable. Here's the link.

download.zonelabs.com...

Thanks Omega,

I will check it out...

Semper

here is vista capable 3rd party fireWALLlink

More

Funny thing about using the Vista firewall to secure your desk top, is that some people consider Microsloth as a potential customer to be blocked.

Many the time when loading up a MS app, (like MediaPlayer), under ZoneAlarm, does it discover that MP is trying to access the 'Net.

Thing is the movie or tune I would be playing is running fine, so ostensibly no need to access the 'Net.

Now does anyone see the problem? I'm betting that Microsloth is giving free rein to any MS application that wants to access the 'Net and I be willing to bet that it's not going to notify you.

So, while the built in Vista firewall may be pretty secure, it's not secure against one of the potentially biggest villains out there.

Just my 2 cents...

Oh, and while I'm at it, consider that there are some rumors that MicroCrap is using the built in Windows defender to screen what you're running and potentially turning off or interfering with applications you might be running. Wouldn't be surprised if it isn't planning to screen DRM (Digital Rights Mgmt) tags and checking which movies you're playing.

So best, perhaps, to use third party apps for your firewall and your Adware and Spyware screening...I'm just sayin'...

Originally posted by Badge01
Many the time when loading up a MS app, (like MediaPlayer), under ZoneAlarm, does it discover that MP is trying to access the 'Net.

I have seen that behaviour on many programs, not just Microsoft's.

Media Player could be trying to find information on the Internet about what you were playing, if you go to the "Tools/Options..." menu, on the "Privacy" tab you have an option called "Display media information from the Internet". You can uncheck the option.

Originally posted by ArMaP
I have seen that behaviour on many programs, not just Microsoft's.

Media Player could be trying to find information on the Internet about what you were playing, if you go to the "Tools/Options..." menu, on the "Privacy" tab you have an option called "Display media information from the Internet". You can uncheck the option.

Yeah, it's probably totally innocent. NOT!

Dude, you're missing the point. If ZA notifies me that a program is trying to access the 'Net, which it does, then the Vista firewall should ALSO be notifying me in the name of parity and honesty. But, trust me, Microsloth will allow whatever access it wants, the user be damned.

In fact I can just picture the meeting at MS HQ. "These dammed firewalls are blocking our stuff. HEY, lets create our OWN firewall then we'll have free reign."

We're seeing more and more suspicious, user-unfriendly, and at times nefarious behavior on the part of the big companies, from Sony's installation of a rootkit to Apple's embedding of user names within songs played, free songs, I might add.

Maybe you should do some more reading about how MS plans to bow to the big corporations by encrypting HD content and actually turning off applications on your system that -MS- doesn't think you should be running. It's not hard to find whole websites devoted to outing this behavior, and it's not hype.

But you just go right on trusting MS if you like...

Me, I'm hoping that Linux and Open Office continue to increase in popularity and eventually either drives MS out of the business, or makes them clean up their act (hah!).

It looks like MS is already losing the Browser war. Go Firefox.

BTW, I already have that tab unchecked but Media Player still tried to access the 'Net. In addition when you fire it up, under Vista at least, then close it, look in Task Manager and you'll see that MP has left several stubs in memory. It doesn't actually terminate the application when you click 'exit'. Think about -that-.

Originally posted by Badge01
Dude, you're missing the point. If ZA notifies me that a program is trying to access the 'Net, which it does, then the Vista firewall should ALSO be notifying me in the name of parity and honesty. But, trust me, Microsloth will allow whatever access it wants, the user be damned.

OK, I understand it now.

The way Zone Alarm works, warning about every process that tries to access the Internet is the most secure, but the problem with that is that people, most of the time, do not know what to answer, and usually click "Allow".

As far as I could see, the Vista firewall has a list of "exceptions", and in it they have Media Player listed, but the "Properties" buttons says

This feature allows users to receive streaming media over UDP.

and that makes me think that whatever method they use to get information from the Internet in Media Player may be included in what they call "Core networking", or maybe they just ignore Media Player, but I doubt it.

But you just go right on trusting MS if you like...

As much as I trust any other software maker...

It looks like MS is already losing the Browser war. Go Firefox.

I have Firefox (but I don't like it) and Firefox is not blocked by the Vista firewall and is not present in the exceptions list, the same as the browser I use the most, Opera.

BTW, I already have that tab unchecked but Media Player still tried to access the 'Net. In addition when you fire it up, under Vista at least, then close it, look in Task Manager and you'll see that MP has left several stubs in memory. It doesn't actually terminate the application when you click 'exit'. Think about -that-.

That does not happen on my computer, when I close Media Player it goes away.

But there is another process, the "Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service Configuration Application" that I suppose is started by the "Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service"

Thanks for the reply, but I continue to insist I want software to be controlled by me, and I want it to politely ask permission.

If you want a PC that acts like a gang of unruly kids, going off to the 'Net and using RAM and Core processing time for their own purposes, not mine, then you're welcome to set things up that way.