Free Firewall

[HLaB]

I am currently using avast anti virus (freeware) and it seems to work ok, is there a similar freeware firewall product?

Thanks,

HLaB

 

[ACS]

HLab

Take a look at Outpost

Depending on your home set up you may have a firewall built in to your router.

Can you give let me know what make and type of router you have?

Andy

 

[HLaB]

Cheers, its a Motorola Surf Board, SB4100

 

[rogersavery]

Which operating system?

 

[ACS]

Ok no firewall on the router.

If you are using M$ Windows can I suggest that you switch on the M$ firewall and do a port probe. This is a test to show which ports are open and will provide a benchmark to test a new firewall installation against.

Go to this web page and select the common ports option.

For reference copy and paste the results into a word type document.

If you get a pass result then you are pretty well secure.

If the result cause some concern download the free version of Outpost. Install it and repeat the test. Compare results if no better, let me know, uninstall Outpost and I will get one of my network engineers to do some research.

 

[HLaB]

Ok no firewall on the router.

If you are using M$ Windows can I suggest that you switch on the M$ firewall and do a port probe. This is a test to show which ports are open and will provide a benchmark to test a new firewall installation against.

Go to this web page and select the common ports option.

For reference copy and paste the results into a word type document.

If you get a pass result then you are pretty well secure.

If the result cause some concern download the free version of Outpost. Install it and repeat the test. Compare results if no better, let me know, uninstall Outpost and I will get one of my network engineers to do some research.

I'm on Windows XP, with Firefox
All I'm getting on that web page is Shields Up!! - System Error, Browser Reload Suppressed

 

[beanzontoast]

I was going to suggest ZoneAlarm, but sounds like budgie has a handle on things!

If you want a look anyway, it's here - the free version is the button on the left (I think - I seem to remember you have to be careful to make sure it's the free version you get).

 

[HLaB]

Found it SB, I'm getting, I trust that's OK:

[SIZE=-1]----------------------------------------------------------------------

GRC Port Authority Report created on UTC: 2009-09-29 at 19:46:43

Results from scan of ports: 0, 21-23, 25, 79, 80, 110, 113,
119, 135, 139, 143, 389, 443, 445,
1002, 1024-1030, 1720, 5000

0 Ports Open
23 Ports Closed
3 Ports Stealth
---------------------
26 Ports Tested

NO PORTS were found to be OPEN.

Ports found to be STEALTH were: 135, 139, 445

Other than what is listed above, all ports are CLOSED.

TruStealth: FAILED - NOT all tested ports were STEALTH,
- NO unsolicited packets were received,
- A PING REPLY (ICMP Echo) WAS RECEIVED.

----------------------------------------------------------------------[/SIZE]

 

[ACS]

I'm on Windows XP, with Firefox
All I'm getting on that web page is Shields Up!! - System Error, Browser Reload Suppressed

Do you have IE still installed give the cut and paste the link in to the IE address bar. http://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?rh1dkyd2

The free version of zone alarm is IMO designed to scare the unwary into purchasing the product. Not a very subtle marketing ploy, but a competent product nevertheless.

 

[HLaB]

Do you have IE still installed give the cut and paste the link in to the IE address bar. http://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?rh1dkyd2

The free version of zone alarm is IMO designed to scare the unwary into purchasing the product. Not very subtle marketing ploy, but a competent product nevertheless.

I still have IE but I think I found the tool page and ran a test it looks OK to me but I'm no expert.

 

[ACS]

Found it SB, I'm getting, I trust that's OK:

[SIZE=-1]----------------------------------------------------------------------

[SIZE=-1]GRC Port Authority Report created on UTC: 2009-09-29 at 19:46:43[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]Results from scan of ports: 0, 21-23, 25, 79, 80, 110, 113, [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]119, 135, 139, 143, 389, 443, 445, [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]1002, 1024-1030, 1720, 5000[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]0 Ports Open[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]23 Ports Closed[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]3 Ports Stealth[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]---------------------[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]26 Ports Tested[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]NO PORTS were found to be OPEN.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]Ports found to be STEALTH were: 135, 139, 445[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]Other than what is listed above, all ports are CLOSED.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]TruStealth: FAILED - NOT all tested ports were STEALTH,[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]- NO unsolicited packets were received,[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]- A PING REPLY (ICMP Echo) WAS RECEIVED.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]----------------------------------------------------------------------[/SIZE][/SIZE]

Ports found to be STEALTH were: 135, 139, 445

While these ports are currently 'hidden' from view they are the first point of vulnerability a hacker/ intruder will look for.
Off the top of my head they are to do with Windows file and print sharing. They can be closed off from within the XP Operating system I just cannot recall how to at the moment.
Let me do some ferreting about on t’ interweb tomorrow and I will PM you some notes.
Rest appears to be fine for a home based PC system. You have to ask yourself would anyone be interested in what’s on my PC. Not really, however they may be interested in using my resources for a BotNot.
If you are concerned about security then do some researching on BotNet prevention and protection.

 

[HLaB]

Cheers again SB, I've installed Outpost; I've just been rebooting it takes a while on this nearly 8year old machine .

My PC had been locking up completely a fair bit with the cpu less than 5%. I uninstalled Avast last month and tried a month with Sophos all seemed fine (scans clear) so I reinstalled Avast it seems to have been doing its job. This last week the cd drive has been randomly ejecting its self, so I got a bit paranoid about security; its probably the age of the machine .

 

[HLaB]

The test again with Outpost:

[SIZE=-1]----------------------------------------------------------------------

GRC Port Authority Report created on UTC: 2009-09-29 at 20:33:35

Results from scan of ports: 0, 21-23, 25, 79, 80, 110, 113,
119, 135, 139, 143, 389, 443, 445,
1002, 1024-1030, 1720, 5000

0 Ports Open
0 Ports Closed
26 Ports Stealth
---------------------
26 Ports Tested

ALL PORTS tested were found to be: STEALTH.

TruStealth: PASSED - ALL tested ports were STEALTH,
- NO unsolicited packets were received,
- NO Ping reply (ICMP Echo) was received.

----------------------------------------------------------------------[/SIZE]

 

[SavageHoutkop]

I've used Comodo for a while now...

 

[ian turner]

With an 8 year old machine thats locking up and randomly opening the cdrom drive I suspect a firewall will make it even slower and what you really need is a new machine before you come back asking how to extract files from a dead machine.